The_Hermit_Of_Cat_Island

92 vamm ewi

town, Peter Frederick, 1889-

the herait of Cat Island; the
lif f Pra Jercme Hawee. P.J
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A SPACIOUS, intriguing biography of one
of the most unorthodox figures of the
twentieth century, this is the story of John
C. Hawes, romantic idealist, architect,
sportsman and priest, who became a her
mit on a remote Bahamian island.

92 H391an

Anson, Peter Frederick,

1889-

The hermit of cat
island; the life of Fra
[1957]

The Hermit of Cat Island

The
Hermit

Of The

Cat

T 1 rl

ISlcinCl p ra Jerome Hawes

BY PETER F. ANSON

P. J. KENEDY & SONS
New York

Copyright 1957 by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 57-10096

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO
CHARLES S. SELBY-HALL

cZose friend of the Hermit of Cat Island
for more than a century

Other books by Peter F. Anson

The Pilgrim s Guide to Franciscan Italy (1927)

Fishing Boats and Fisher Folk on the East Coast of Scotland

(1930)

Fishermen and Fishing Ways (1931)
Mariners of Brittany (1931)
The Quest of Solitude (1932)
Six Pilgrim s Sketch Books (1934)
A Pilgrim Artist in Palestine (1934)
The Catholic Church in Modern Scotland (1937)
The Caravan Pilgrim (1938)
The Scottish Fisheries: Are They Doomed? (1939)
The Benedictines of Caldey (1940)
How to Draw Ships (1941)
British Sea Fishermen (1944)
Harbour Head: Maritime Memories (1945)
A Roving Recluse: More Memories (1946)
The Apostleship of the Sea in England and Wales (1946)
The Sea Apostolate in Ireland (1946)
Churches: Their Plan and Furnishing (1948)
The Story of Pluscarden Priory (1948)
The Church and the Sailor (1949)
The Religious Orders and Congregations of Great Britain and

Ireland (1950)
Scots Fisher Folk (1951)
Christ and the Sailor (1954)
The Call of the Cloister (1955)
Carmelite Hermits and Hermitages (1957)
Tliese Made Peace [with Cecily Hallack] (1957)

Foreword

MY FRIENDSHIP with the Hermit of Cat Island Monsignor
John C. Hawes began in 1939 when he first wrote me to
congratulate me on the publication of The Benedictines of
Caldey which, he explained, had aroused many long-buried
memories. I had been familiar with the career of Fra Jerome,
as he now called himself, since I had first heard of him in
1911 as an Anglican Franciscan. I was aware of his successful
architectural ventures, his conversion to Catholicism and sub
sequent work as a missionary in Australia. Now I learned
that only a few weeks before his letter arrived he had be
come a Franciscan tertiary hermit in the Bahamas. From this
time we corresponded regularly and frequently, Father
Jerome enlivening his vivid and detailed impressions of
people and places with amusing sketches or rough drawings
of the churches he was designing.

When in 1945 he asked me to write his biography, explain
ing that his bishop in Australia had put him under obedience
to tell the story of how, by a long series of strange events, he
had received what he believed to be a clear call to end his
days as a hermit in the Bahamas, I replied that I would be
delighted to prepare his story for publication.

Three months later two large parcels, containing diaries,
notebooks, chapters of an unfinished autobiography and
much miscellaneous material, arrived, followed by a third
parcel of drawings and photographs of his architectural work
at all stages of his career. Finally came a bundle of letters
which he had written to Mr. Charles S. Selby-Hall, some of
them dating back to the days when they were both Church of
England clergymen.

vii

Foreword

I immediately set to work fitting together the bits and
pieces of his extraordinary career, and by the time the biog
raphy had been brought up to 1948 I felt that I knew inti
mately the Hermit of Cat Island, even though we had never
met face to face. But then Father Jerome wrote me that the
book must not be published before his death, so reluctantly
I put aside the manuscript. It was not until eight years later,
after receiving word from Bishop Leonard Hagarty, O.S.B.,
Vkar Apostolic of the Bahamas, of the death of Father
Jerome at Miami Beach, Florida, on June 26, 1956, that I
was able again to take up this work. Now, twelve years later,
it has been revised and put into its final shape.

In the midst of a material civilization visibly crumbling
away before us, the story of a man such as Father Jerome
going apart into solitude bears a silent witness to the reality
of the unseen, to the lordship of mind over matter, to the
supremacy in man of the spirit. And, quite apart from the
fascinating content of his life story, it has a real historical
and spiritual importance.

Father Jerome was one of the very few Catholics in mod
ern times who embraced the hermit s vocation. Like Charles
de Foucauld, his French counterpart, he was inspired by the
solitary ideal. And, like him, he was unable completely to
achieve his object because circumstances presented active
work for souls which could not be refused.

Just because of his God-given temperament, it would have
been almost impossible for John Cyril Hawes to have be
come one of those solitaries who, valuing solitude as their
most cherished possession, take good care that it is not dis
covered. Their one object is to efface themselves so that they
are not recognized for what they are. They realize that the
surest way to hide themselves is to live in the midst of the
crowd where they are unknown, unthought of and unre
marked. They are always trying to make themselves incon-

Foreword ix

spicuous to put people off the scent so that their lives can
be completely hidden with God.

Had Charles de Foucauld remained in his log hut in the
garden of the Poor Glare Convent at Nazareth, where he
worked as a servant, he might have been forgotten until after
his death. But Abb Huvelin, his spiritual director, felt that
that was not De Foucauld s true vocation and so, having been
ordained priest, he ended up as a hermit-missionary in the
Sahara from where his fame spread throughout the world.
The case of John Cyril Hawes is almost similar. Like De
Foucauld, he really wanted to become an absolute solitary,
but the ecclesiastical authorities were sure that his talents
must not be wasted. As a result, the last years of his life were
almost as active as those spent as a missionary in Australia.

But if Father Jerome did not entirely succeed in achieving
complete solitude on his isolated island, if his eremitical life
was constantly interrupted by demands on his architectural
talents, by necessary ministrations to the native Bahamians,
and by a steady stream of visitors, nevertheless the means
which he chose to hide himself were in keeping with his
basically artistic nature. A shrewder or more worldly-minded
man might have guessed that to build a hermitage on the
highest hill in an archipelago frequented by tourists would
inevitably lead to his solitude being invaded. But who can
deny that his vocation may have been to remind the modern
world of the value of the solitary life that the Hermit of Cat
Island was meant to serve as a living sermon, stressing some
thing so many of us have forgotten? For a Christian hermit is
not running away from something; he is running after some
thing. And that something is God.

PETER F. ANSON

Contents

Foreword vii

1. The Young Seeker (1876-1901) 3

2. The Poor Man s Follower (1901-1908) 18

3. "Roman Fever" (1908-1911) 39

4. From the Rockies to the Beda (1911-1915) 54

5. Gold-Fields Missionary (1915-1920) 68

6. Bush Architect (1920-1937) 87

7. The Bahamas Beckon (1937-1939) 102

8. Cat Island (1939-1940) 117

9. Island Priest (1940-1943) 146

10. Soliloquies of a Solitary (1943) 175

11. "In Journeyings Often ..." (1944-1948) 187

12. The Artist at Work 213

13. Toward Evening 248

14. The Last Journey (1954-1956) 267
Last Will and Testament 274
The Litany of the Hermits 275
Appendix: Buildings Designed by John C. Hawes 276

The Hermit of Cat Island

1.

The Young Seeker [1876-igoi]

"WELL! That s the funniest little baby I ve ever seen just
like an old bishop."

This comment by the grandmother of John Cyril Hawes is
all that he himself tells us of the circumstances of his birth on
September 7, 1876, except for the fact of his baptism a few
weeks later at St. John s Church.

John was the third son of a London attorney who lived in
Richmond, Surrey, now a part of London, but then still a
small town in the country. It was filled with stately Georgian
and Queen Anne mansions, their private gardens and grounds
enclosed by long stretches of high red-brick walls. Pair-horse
carriages driven by gold-laced coachmen and attended by
flunkies rolled along the quiet tree-shaded roads while be
yond the town lay fields and market gardens.

The Hawes lived in a house in Paradise Road, where, in
the Victorian tradition, the family formed a close-knit unit.
As soon as John was old enough his two older brothers, Ted
and Robert, accepted him as an equal and drew him into
their games. The three boys sallied forth to sail their boats
on a pond in Richmond Park, or maneuvered their indoor
fleet across a table at home, naming their six-inch-long battle
ships after vessels in the Royal Navy. Once a year they were

3

4 The Hermit of Cat Island

taken to a Christmas pantomime at the Drury Lane Theatre,
and Mis. Hawes annually entertained her sons friends at a
Christmas children *s party with games, supper and dancing.
John hated the dancing, for it made him giddy, but he sub
mitted to it for the sake of being allowed to go to similar
gatherings at the homes of other boys and girls.

In the summer holidays the family went boating on the
Thames, and every August established themselves in a quiet
resort on the coast of Sussex, such as Bognor or Littlehamp-
ton. Then there were musical evenings at home with Mrs.
Hawes accompanying on the piano while Ted played the
violin and Bob the flageolet or the cornet.

Like most middle-class English families of the period, the
Hawes were devout Christians. Mr. Hawes, who belonged to
the evangelical section of the Church of England, held strong
"Protestant" views so uncompromising that he resigned his
office of churchwarden after a pair of candlesticks had been
placed on the communion table of St. John s. No excuse ever
served, recalled John, to prevent his father from taking his
children to church on Sunday morning. And on weekdays he
read family prayers morning and evening while the house
hold knelt at chairs turned to the walls around the dining
room a custom prevalent in most Victorian families.

Mrs. Hawes had her special devotions at midday, and dur
ing their holidays her sons joined her. Each of them read in
turn from the Book of Common Prayer the verses of the
psalms for the particular day of the month. Then their
mother read the two appointed lessons from the Old and
New Testament, followed by the Te Deum and the Collect
for the preceding Sunday. John never found these devotions
tiresome because his mother varied them with explanations
and commentaries.

John s "Franciscanism" developed early, so he jokingly
wrote, when he became attached to his cousin s sturdy bull

The Young Seeker 5

terrier, Phiz, an affectionate dog who expressed his fondness
for the small boy by licking his face all over and joining in
the games. And it was on his fifth birthday, when a large box
of toy bricks was given to him, that he found his vocation.
"There were blocks and beams of various lengths, curved

"My Fifth Birthday"

arch pieces, round pillars and triangular spandrils; making it
possible to build houses, bridges, harbors, forts or towers.
Henceforth I was an architect, engineer and builder." He
adds that he now became interested in drawing as well, and
constantly bothered his father for paper and pencils.

At the age of six John s formal education began. He was
sent to a small private day school, and three years later to a
preparatory boarding school in Sussex Square, Brighton.
There his clearest memory was of Sunday mornings when the
eighteen little boys at the school settled themselves in the
pews at St. George s Proprietary Chapel, where the minister
preached in a black Geneva gown, and the service was ter
ribly dreary. This no doubt served to set his inclinations in
the direction of High Church rites, an enthusiasm that de
veloped further when, at thirteen, he entered King s School,
Canterbury.

6 The Hermit of Cat Island

There, he wrote, "I came under the influence of the past
the great medieval cathedral welcomed and sheltered me
under its wings. I drank the cup of tradition. The very stones
of the glorious old temple of God cried out in testimony of
its Catholic past." Stirred as he was by Canterbury, young
Hawes reveled in history, particularly in its architectural
manifestations, and further solidified his professional lean
ings by capturing the first prize for drawing.

At King s School John did not confine himself altogether
to his studies, but threw himself happily into sports, an im
portant part of English public-school life. His choice was foot
ball and he soon found himself playing halfback in the third
"Rugger" fifteen. "We played in wet and mud even when
it was snowing but woe betide anybody who was discovered
wearing a singlet or shirt under his football jersey. Every
thing would be torn to shreds off his back for being a molly
coddle/ I am thankful I was brought up in that school of
hardness, but I was a very quiet and unaggressive boy."

One of John s favorite preoccupations was to wander
around Canterbury Cathedral, and soon he became familiar
with every nook and cranny of the great structure. He rein
forced his firsthand knowledge with many hours spent in the
library poring over related books, and here he discovered the
Rule of St. Benedict. This so impressed him that he says,
"Expressive of my admiration, I got a block of wood and
carved with my penknife a small eight-inch statue of the
Patriarch of western monasticism my first idolatrous graven
image!"

It was at about this time that John made friends with a
group of boys who were High Church, among whom was
H. J. Fynes-Qinton, later to become one of the leaders of
the Papalist party in. the Church of England. With them, for
the fast time/ he attended the sung Eucharist at the ancient
church of St. Peter.

The Young Seeker 7

The excitement of these new experiences was somewhat
dampened by his instruction for the Anglican rite of Con
firmation. "... Concerning the sacrament of the Holy Com
munion the nearest we got to an explanation of the Real
Presence was the quotation of an ambiguous verse (attrib
uted to Queen Elizabeth) : Christ was the Word and spake
it; that I believe and take it/ I longed for something more
Catholic, but had not the courage to ask: Please sir, what
does the Church believe and teach that the Word makes it? "
The Bishop of Dover who confirmed the boys reminded them
that "the Church of England accepts only two sacraments and
that the other five . . . are nothing more than a corrupt fol
lowing of the Apostles."

In spite of such evangelical warnings, John found himself
more and more attracted by High Church services and began
to dream of becoming an Anglo-Catholic clergyman, but
when his father proposed that he take up architecture as a
profession, he lacked the courage to confess his preference.
John therefore found himself at sixteen articled to the firm
of Edmerton and Gabriel, whose offices were situated in the
very heart of London. He might have enjoyed the work ex
cept that it chiefly consisted of plans for banks and schools,
whereas John s heart was in church design.

For five years he endured this drudgery, at the same time
attending evening classes at the Royal Institute of British
Architects and the Architectural Association schools. He also
enrolled in handicrafts classes at the London Polytechnic and
the London County Council Arts and Crafts School where
he learned how to carve in stone and wood and acquired a
practical knowledge of the use of building materials and the
intricacies of plumbing.

John s very thorough grounding in architectural theory
and practice was established by some of the best teachers of
the time. Among them were William R. Lethaby, a former

8 The Hermit of Cat Island

disciple of John Ruskin and a founder of the Art Workers
Guild and the Arts and Grafts Society, who was principal
of the London County Council school; and E. S. Prior, well
known for his writings on medieval architecture. John was
further influenced by the work of John D. Sedding, an archi
tect who by contemporary standards was almost revolution
ary. He was particularly inspired by Sedding s design of Holy
Trinity Church, Sloane Street, which blended Renaissance
details with Gothic, and this architectural style had a life
long influence on the young man whose taste was always
eclectic.

But it was not only ecclesiastical architecture that fasci
nated John Hawes at this time; he became just as interested
in the externals of worship. He recalled that "the then count
less City churches were always open during London s busy
midday luncheon hour. Through the zeal and energy of the
High Church party, the Lenten season was made a real mis
sion time, with daily services in many churches during the
luncheon interval, Office clerks . . . gulped down a few sand
wiches in order to get in early to services, and the little
medieval Gothic Church of St. Ethelburga, Bishopgate, was
the favorite place of pilgrimage for Anglo-Catholics. Here in
Lent there was a daily midday Mass, and on saints 1 days a
solemn Te Deum was sung after it, with the celebrant in a
cope, and "enough incense to choke you!" John became more
and more familiar with the Anglo-Catholic world of the
eighteen nineties, although he does not seem to have pene
trated into its underworld. He remained on the threshold,
as it were, perhaps because he was too shy to indulge in any
reckless adventures.

But he was bold enough to wander into several "Roman"
churches, including the imposing Renaissance church of the

Oratorian Fathers. Here to quote his own words "Light

suddenly came to me that the Catholic and Roman Church

The Young Seeker 9

must be the True Church. I knew I ought to become a Cath
olic. But what a blow this step would be to my dear parents
what a terrible separation. I trembled. Then I reflected in
my ignorance that, if I became a Catholic, I would have to
believe that my father and mother would be damned im
possible! To strengthen my resistance to God s grace, I fell
back on the quibbling and sophisticated arguments of The
Church Times"

It is difficult for the average person to understand the
evolutionary process which takes place before an ordinary
Anglican becomes a full-fledged Anglo-Catholic. Subcon
sciously the individual, especially in the case of a youth, feels
the thrill of doing something wrong. In the case of John
Hawes, who was essentially of an emotional temperament,
his attraction to Catholicism was romantic rather than intel
lectual. It is permissible to wonder whether this "light" that
he saw in the London Oratory was anything more than the
quite-understandable glamor of the gorgeous baroque archi
tecture, combined with the elusive smell of incense.

Shortly after this he summoned up his courage to make his
first confession in the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Mun-
ster Square, at that date one of the most popular Anglo-
Catholic strongholds in London. For a few months he re
mained fervent. Then he became careless, and, apparently
not yet considering that it was a mortal sin for him to miss
Mass on Sundays, often went off cycling, never entering a
church at all. His religious emotionalism is shown by the fact
that after a few of these brief spells of paganism he grew pious
again; so pious, that he wanted to abandon the architectural
profession and become a clergyman. He saw himself as a young
priest vested in cassock, lace-trimmed cotta and biretta, or as
the celebrant at High Mass wearing a splendid embroidered
chasuble. Then he thought of becoming a missionary, and
developed a special interest in the Universities Mission to

10 The Hermit of Cat Island

Central Africa, whose services were reputed to be more "Cath
olic" than almost any of those in England. But how could he
leave his home and relations, not to mention aU the ecclesias
tical attractions of England its beautiful churches and ca
thedrals, and the increasing fascination of the ritualistic
movement in the Anglican Church?

An Easter vacation tour in Normandy with one of his
brothers, then an undergraduate at Trinity College, Oxford,
helped to make John even more enthusiastic about the exter
nals of the Catholic religion. Among the towns they visited
was Caen, where, so he tells us, he "felt raised to Heaven. It
was all so different from England. I went into several churches,
richly dim and mysterious, with twinkling lights of candles
glimmering here and there where priests were offering the
Holy Sacrifice in little side chapels no glare of daylight, no
stiff rows of long pews, but prie-dieus and chairs, higgledy-
piggledy anyhow. Worshipers knelt at prayer in reverent si
lence, nor was there any loud mouthing at them by the min
ister, of long prayers. Only the quiet blessed mutter of the
Mass. 1 The very atmosphere moved to worship, to bring one
to one s knees. And all the churches were the same. You did
not have to worry about exercising care to choose one that
was Low or High/ "

Two years later John and his brother made a longer tour
in France on a tandem bicycle. Starting at Le Havre, they
visited Jumiges, Caudebec, Rouen, Chartres, Bourges, and
so on into the mountainous country of Auvergne, reaching
Le Puy, which John described as "the most marvelous and
fairy-like of old cities." The tour ended with Paris, Beauvais
ajad Amiens. The effect on him of the glories of French ec
clesiastical architecture seems to have been overwhelming;
not so much because of the buildings themselves, but because
of their Catholic atmosphere.

On September 7, 1897, John kept his twenty-first birthday,

The Young Seeker 11

and became his own master. Immediately he started to work
on his own at Bognor in Sussex. He designed several houses
and cottages, as well as a curious-looking building named
"The White Tower/ which was commented on favorably
and illustrated by a drawing in The British Architect. It
seems that his enthusiasm for Anglo-Catholicism suffered a
partial eclipse, and for the whole of one summer all his spare
time, including Sundays, was spent in sailing his first boat,
in which he sometimes ventured as far as the Isle of Wight

In February 1898 he started work on a model intended
for the Royal Academy Exhibition. It took the form of an
imaginary church set among the mountainous Cumberland
Fells. He tells us that every little detail, inside and out, was
made to scale with meticulous care, including the pulpit,
rails, and altar, with its six candlesticks, backed by a painted
triptych of the Crucifixion. The model was accepted and
to quote his own words "it brought me recognition, public
ity and praise, also my first commission to build a church,
at Gunnerton in Northumberland."

It was shortly after this that he experienced what he always
regarded as a genuine religious conversion. It followed a
brief but harmless flirtation with a beautiful girl of about
his own age, during which he records he "walked on air, in
toxicated with dreams and visions."

One evening he happened to be in London, about to take
the train back to Bognor. He was walking down Regent
Street, and turned into the Church of St. Thomas, where a
festival service of some sort was going on. His own words re
veal his emotional reaction clearly.

"I recollect standing at the back of the crowded church,
and the stirring roll of the Gregorian chants as the whole
congregation joined in the psalms of Evensong to the thunder
of the organ. Then came the Magnificat, with copes and much
incense* And now a white-haired clergyman with a strong

12 The Hermit of Cat Island

square face entered the pulpit Canon Rhodes-Bristow of
Lewisham -never shall I forget his name! God bless him!
In earnest, convincing tones he spoke of Vocation of the
world and its allurements and of the purpose of Life. The
Loxd said to Abraham, get thee forth out of thy country, and
from thy kindred and out of thy father s house and go into the
land that I shall show thee. And how Elijah the Prophet
called Elisha when he was in the midst of plowing and Elisha
left his plow and oxen in the field and followed Elijah. And
how St. Francis Xavier heard and pondered the words: What
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his
own soul?

"I had that night seen the veil lifted back. I had seen The
Vision. I went home in deep thought. Something terrible
had crossed my path. It is hard for thee to kick against the
pricks/ and to whom it applies it is absolute it must be re
sponded to without any conditions. ... If thou wilt be per
fect, go sell all that thou hast and give to the poor and
come, follow Me/ I couldn t! I couldn t! I was troubled. It
became impossible for me to apply myself to my work the
work that I loved so much.

"And then suddenly Our Lord touched me with His grace
He called me literally from the instruments of my work.
I remember I rose up from my stool before the drawing board
with the T square in my hand, and I laid it down in happy
surrender. Unspeakable joy flooded my soul. Lord, I will
follow Thee, whithersoever Thou goest. The flood of that
joy carried me on so that I thought sacrifice is no sacrifice at
all because it is such a joy to offer it. Ignorant of the spiritual
life, I did not understand that we cannot build everlasting
tabernacles on the holy mountain that the joy of Tabor is
only to fortify us against the going up to Jerusalem. I did not
realize what dark days were to follow, and that when the
Master says, Follow Me/ it will be through the Garden of
Gethsemane."

The Young Seeker 13

John wasted no time. The following morning he took the
train from Bognor to London, went straight to the office of
the Universities Mission to Central Africa, and demanded
an immediate interview with the secretary. It was a bitter
blow to be told that what the Mission wanted most was lay
workers, but he accepted this as the will of God, even if he
now longed to become an Anglo-Catholic priest. The sec
retary said he would arrange for an examination by the med
ical board as soon as possible, and inform John of the date
fixed.

His parents, naturally, were horrified when he told them
that he was making plans to go to Central Africa. They could
not understand his sudden religious conversion, and pointed
out that it was ridiculous for him to throw over the career
for which he had been trained without serious reflection on
the consequences. To their intense relief the doctors refused
to pass their son, saying that his heart would not stand up to
the tropical climate. From the parents 7 point of view a major
crisis had been averted, but to John it was a bitter disappoint
ment. All he could do was to wait and pray for further guid
ance.

Three years before John s religious conversion the intel
lectual world had been taken by storm by the publication
of Paul Sabatier s Vie de S. Francois d Assise which almost
simultaneously was placed on the Index and crowned by the
French Academy. This remarkable biography was soon trans
lated into most European languages, including English. As
Dr. John R. H. Moorman remarks: "Immediately the print
ing presses of Europe began to hum with Franciscan literature
of all kinds and of widely different value. Works appeared
with bewildering rapidity." * This book, written by a French
Protestant theologian, certainly gave the greatest impulse
to the modern study of Franciscan history as has been ad-

ijohn R. H. Moorman, The Sources for the Life of St. Francis of Assist
(Manchester, 1930), p. 9.

14 The Hermit of Cat Island

mitted by the late Archbishop Paschal Robinson, O.F.M.

In England this sudden "rediscovery" of St. Francis was
dosely associated with the Christian Socialist movement, one
of whose leaders was an Anglo-Catholic clergyman, the Rev
erend James G. Adderley, a son of Lord Norton. In 1893
he had published a little book with a strongly Franciscan
fiavor entitled Stephen RemarxThe Story of a Venture in
Ethics, an effort in fictional form to popularize Christian
Socialist principles.

The following year Adderley with a few like-minded young
clergymen inaugurated a brotherhood, the Society of Divine
Compassion, whose members sought to live a mortified life,
sharing the privation and discomfort of those who have no
choice but to be poor. Adderley, however, left the Society
within three years and it was while he was trying to convert
a Mayfair congregation to Christian Socialism that John
Hawes s path crossed his. It was Adderley who pressed upon
John Sabatier s St. Francis of Assisi, which he devoured from
cover to cover in one evening. Thus occurred John s first
meeting with the Little Poor Man who from that moment
became his spiritual inspiration, the saint whom he longed to
imitate in the most literal manner possible.

Fired by his new enthusiasm, John scoured the bookshops
for Franciscan publications. His first find was Canon Knox
Little s biography of the saint written from an Anglican
point of view. Then how could he resist the olive-green,
leather-bound Little Flowers of St. Francis it fit into his
coat pocket! Equally tempting was the newly-published trans
lation of The Mirror of Perfection^ and in a short time he
would have Lina Duff Gordon s The Story of Assist^ which
tnnst have sparked his interest in Franciscan architecture. It
is a foregone conclusion that John read The Commonwealth,
the monthly magazine of the Christian Social Union, whose
articles based on Franciscan ideals pointed out how the work-

The Young Seeker 15

ing classes could be saved from sweated labor and exploita
tion.

Little by little the new discoveries that John was making
drew him close to the Roman Catholic Church. Then one day
came a letter signed fiBWilfred, Bishop Hornby. The un
known writer explained that he had greatly admired the
model church exhibited at the Royal Academy and wanted
John Hawes to design for him a country church in North
umberland. Would the young architect meet him at his Lon
don club and talk over the matter?

The invitation threw John into a quandary. He felt that
it was a subtle form of temptation and, as he confesses, that
the Bishop was the devil in disguise! His first impulse was
not to reply, but after waiting a week he consulted his father,
who told him not to be stupid. The next morning he went up
to London to lunch with Bishop Hornby, who, he discovered,
was the former bishop of Nyasaland. When John said good-
by to him a short time later he had committed himself to pre
pare plans for the Bishop s north-country church.

For the rest of his life John was to suffer from scruples at
the wisdom of accepting this commission. Looking back long
afterward he said that it is probable that he might have be
come a Catholic there and then had he not fallen into tempta
tion. He felt that if he had entered the Friars Minor or the
Capuchins his spiritual life would have been developed in
submission of his will to authority and wise guidance, al
though his intimates, knowing his strong individualistic tem
perament, were inclined to doubt his ability to endure the
novitiate. Nevertheless, John remained convinced that had he
been faithful to the resolution made after his spiritual
awakening, not only he but his parents would have found
their way into the Catholic Church. In his own words, "I
fell into the lower place, and tried to serve God there by put
ting all my heart and soul into the designing of that little

I6 The Hermit of Cat Island
church in Northumberland. But alas! Once he who has put
his hand to God s plow looks back he falls, not once but many
times. These forty years past how have I fallen from ideals.
From one lower place to another still lower "

But in spite of his scruples, like St. Francis answering
Christ s call to "... repair my church which is wholly a
ruin," John set out not to rebuild a ruined church but to de
sign a new one. He said good-by to his parents and moved to
the pleasant Upper Tyneside village of Chollerton. There
in Bishop Hornby s comfortable vicarage John settled down
to work. On Sundays he acted as a "lay reader," and con
ducted evening services in the neighboring village of Colwell.
He visited the scattered farms and cottages, and taught the
catechism in the village school at Chollerton. To all intents
and purposes he acted as the Bishop s unordained curate.

Once again he began to dream of becoming a Franciscan,
but for the moment all he could achieve in this direction
was to wear a homespun brown suit as an outward sign of
his spiritual ideals. At first he was satisfied to make his long
expeditions on foot, but later he was unable to resist the
temptation to borrow a horse and ride over the countryside.
He refused, however, to join in the killing of "Brother Fox"
for sport this was absolutely vetoed by his natural and Fran
ciscan love of animals.

It was while he was living with Bishop Hornby at Choller
ton that John had his first real contact with Catholics. Within
a mile or two of the village was Swinburn Castle, the seat of
the ancient Catholic family of Riddell, with its own chapel
and resident priest. Many of the farmers and cottagers in this
remote northern part of England had clung to the "Old Re
ligion" after the Reformation, and it was a shock to John to
ind "Romanism" so very much alive in rural England.

Although like most Anglo-Catholics of his generation
John no doubt would have argued that the Catholics were

The Young Seeker 17

"dissenters" and not part of the true Church of the country,
he was dangerously attracted both to the worship and the
chapel of the "schismatics." With his customary enthusiasm
he set about designing his church at Gunnerton with the
idea of making it approximate as closely as possible a Cath
olic place of worship. This first church of John Hawes
achieved a charm and originality equal to any other design
of the period, and established him firmly in one of his two
parallel careers. And slowly but insistently Bishop Hornby
was urging him toward the second.

The Poor Man s Follower [1901-1908]

BY this time John had determined to model his life on that
of St. Francis of Assisi, and in imitation of Francis, who out
of humility had refused to become a priest, had set his will
against taking holy orders. Bishop Hornby, however, was
sure that John had a vocation to the priesthood and used all
his powers of persuasion to induce the younger man to study
for Anglican orders. Finally John gave way and entered the
Lincoln Theological College in 1901.

At this time advanced liberal views were being expressed
in some English theological circles, and although these fil
tered through to the Lincoln students by way of commen
taries by nonconformist divines, the spiritual atmosphere of
the college was not entirely congenial to a student who re
garded himself a "Catholic.** The head of the diocese, Bishop
King, was "High" in his opinions, but Dean Wickham, who
ruled over the cathedral, was "Broad/ and he and his canons
formed a compact and uniform social set that governed the
thinking of the school.

This, together with his discovery that the college build
ings were of a nonecclesiastical cast, caused some dissatisfac
tion to John, but he set about remedying the latter by secur
ing the permission of the Warden to affix a six-foot wooden

IS

The Poor Man s Follower 19

cross in the central pediment at roof level. His fellow students
helped him adorn the cross with gold leaf so that it could be
seen glittering in the sunlight above the lower parts of the
city.

Then he discovered a beautiful old church in the village
of Nettleton five miles north of Lincoln where, on a Sunday
morning, he and his friend Charles Selby-Hall used some
times to attend the sung Eucharist which was more to their
taste than the choral matins in the cathedral. This and his
friendship with Selby-Hall helped to make up for the lack
of Anglo-Catholicism at Lincoln.

John s dreams of entering a religious community began to
crystallize during his early months at Lincoln, and he not
only explored the possibilities of existing Anglican groups,
but designed a Gothic gatehouse for Alton Abbey, Hamp
shire, and drew up plans for a stately abbey church. In addi
tion he came upon an article in The Church Review which
described the establishment of the Anglican Benedictine
community in Yorkshire, a community founded in 1896 by
a twenty-year-old medical student, Benjamin Fearnley Car-
lyle, who took the religious name Aelred. Dynamic, imagina
tive and irrepressibly optimistic, Carlyle visualized Anglican
Benedictine abbeys scattered up and down the length of
England. But things had not turned out exactly as he had
expected. After six years his only community numbered but
a dozen monks, and although he himself had managed to
obtain the approval of Dr. Frederick Temple, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, for his election as abbot, neither Aelred nor
any of his monks had found an Anglican bishop willing to
ordain them.

In spite of these drawbacks Painsthorpe Abbey represented
a monastic asceticism that quite swept John Hawes off his
feet. He wrote at once to the Abbot and having received per
mission from the warden to spend a weekend at the monas-

20 The Hermit of Cat Island

tery he set off to visit Painsthorpe. "Everything surpassed my
expectations," he wrote. "... I longed to join the community
then and there for the sake of the monastic life, but felt I
could not because for me the religious life meant definitely
the Franciscan form of it and nothing else."

Nevertheless, the outwardly Catholic ethos of Painsthorpe
delighted John. Here, for the first time, he assisted at the
Divine Office chanted in Latin. The sight of tonsured monks
in choir dressed in white habits and black scapulars, with
black cowls or cloaks, raised him to the seventh heaven. Abbot
Aelred was equally delighted with John and tried to divert
him from what he considered his quixotic idea of founding
a Franciscan brotherhood in the Church of England. He
proposed that John enter the Benedictine novitiate as soon
as he received Anglican orders, thereby assuring the abbey of
the services of an ordained clergyman.

In spite of Abbot Aelred s dominant personality and evi
dent fascination, Hawes managed to withstand his persuasive
powers. Of this encounter he says, "He saw that I was of a
yielding, subjective nature, easily influenced and handled.
But ... the Abbot did not reckon how absolutely unyielding
and uncompromising I could be on a matter of real principle,
so we never got down to definite conclusions."

There was one immediate result achieved, however. The
Abbot persuaded his architect guest to draw up plans for a
chapel for which the foundation stone was laid in June 1902
and which was opened on November 11 of the same year
In the meantime John returned to Lincoln to continue
his studies, but even though he had not taken the risk of com
mitting himself to the Abbot of Painsthorpe, his contact with
the Benedictines had aroused new discontent with typical
Anglicanism. As the time drew near for his ordination to the
diaconate he began to wonder if he would find a church with
services sufficiently "Catholic." Bishop Hornby came to his

The Poor Man s Follower 21

rescue by giving him a letter to the Reverend Vincent Eyre,
vicar of the Church of the Holy Redeemer, Clerkenwell
the stronghold of "extreme" Anglo-Catholicism in London.
Father Eyre agreed to take on John as his junior curate as
soon as he was raised to the diaconate, and Dr. Winnington
Ingram, the Bishop of London, accepted him for his diocese.

John with sixty other young men who were to be ordained
retired to Fulham Palace for the short retreat that followed
their two years at Lincoln. There the Thirty-Nine Articles
were "administered to the ordinands like a dose of castor
oil." Poor John, who at no time in his life was a casuist and
never was given to equivocation, hardly knew what to do
when it came to giving his assent to the Articles. He tells us
that "when we raised our hands in Fulham Palace Library
and solemnly swore before the bishop our assent to the
Thirty-Nine Articles of religion, I felt a sudden trembling-
it was the worst thing I had ever done in my life. At Lincoln
I had read privately many books on Catholic doctrine adopted
by the extreme Anglo-Catholic theologians, which argued
how the blunt and obvious Protestant statements of the
Articles and black rubrics could be interpreted in a Cath
olic sense. It seemed that it was not really the sacrifice of the
Mass that one of the Articles condemned in plain words as
a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit, but the sacrifices
of Masses offered as fresh and numerical sacrifices independ
ent of Calvary. It struck me then as a most lamentable and
dishonest piece of special pleading. The real meaning seemed
to be proved by the destruction of altars at the Reformation,
and the rivers of blood poured out by seminary priests. My
dear Mother, in her simple evangelical faith, had inculcated
me with a deep and sacred reverence for literal truth, and
here I was being unfaithful to her teaching."

Once the Reverend John Hawes found himself the junior
curate of the Holy Redeemer, Clerkenwell, however, it was

22 The Hermit of Cat Island

easy for him to forget the more Protestant aspects of Angli
canism. This church was something quite unique when
opened in 1888. John D. Sedding had designed a gorgeous
Renaissance interior, with the high altar standing beneath
an imposing baldachino, which was a fairly close replica of
that in Brunelleschf s Church of Santo Spirito at Florence.
So Italian was the interior that Walter Pater said that it made
him think of how some of the Renaissance churches in Venice
must have looked when they were fresh and clean. The setting
and decor were completely "ultramontane." A visitor would
have found it hard to believe that he was in a place of worship
belonging to the Church of England, what with the three
altars, businesslike confessionals, stations of the cross, statues,
vestments and incense. The new curate must have been thank
ful to Bishop Hornby for having found him an environment
which was so utterly and uncompromisingly "Catholic" in
externals. Moreover, the immediate surroundings of the
church provided exactly the outlet he sought for the fulfill
ment of his Franciscan ideals.

Fifty years ago the slums of Clerkenwell were as bad as
any in London. Squalor, disease, unemployment and desti
tution were commonplaces. At times, in desperation, the
tenants would smash up the doors of the rooms for firewood
and then disappear the night before the rent collector was
due. John found it easy to share the poverty of the third of
the parish allotted to him. He did not live in the clergy house,
but in a little room, high up the stone stairs of a gloomy so-
called "model dwelling" off Farringdon Street. From there
he weait out to work among the poor families of the district,
more than once, so he recalls, sitting up all night by a sick
bed. He gave away everything he could spare, and that was
not much, for he had refused to accept the salary of one hun
dred fifty pounds offered him by Father Eyre, saying that he
could manage quite well on ninety pounds a year. During

The Poor Man s Follower 23

Lent he made his breakfast off black coffee and hard ship s
biscuit, often suffering acute indigestion from hungrily de
vouring a surfeit of lentils at the one full meal of the day.
He ate no meat from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday.

The spiritual atmosphere of the clergy house would have
struck any Catholic visitor as being very peculiar. The vicar
belonged to one of the old English Catholic families which
had held on to the Faith for nearly two centuries, and then
lapsed into Anglicanism. Nevertheless, he had an intense love
and veneration for the Pope and everything Roman, and
longed to be in communion with the Holy See. John always
maintained in after years that it was his vicar who taught him
the foundp&on principles of Catholicism, above all the neces
sity of Submission to authority. It was in this respect that
Father Eyre differed from some of his fellow Anglo-Catholic
clergy, who demonstrated their "Catholicism" by defying
the orders of their bishop on every possible occasion; main
taining that he had no binding power because Anglican
bishops were merely state-appointed officials!

Father Eyre, in deference to the Bishop of London, had
already removed the sixth station of the cross, because St.
Veronica does not appear in the Gospels, given up proces
sional lights and the ceremonial use of incense, and finally
removed the confessionals and substituted curtained prayer
desks. When his new curate expostulated with him about
pandering to Protestant prejudices, he remarked that no
amount of external ritual and ceremonial could make the
Church of England Catholic! Indeed, the vicar of the Holy
Redeemer was looked upon as not being quite sound by some
of his more aggressive clerical brethren. All the same, the
Protestant Truth Society and the Church Association kept a
close watch on the "goings on" in Clerkenwell, and from time
to time reported illegalities to the Bishop of London.

At the end of his first year at Holy Redeemer, John was

24 The Hermit of Cat Island

raised to the Anglican priesthood. Apparently he had no
doubts about the validity of his Orders, and derived intense
spiritual satisfaction from "saying Mass." Then in 1904
Father Eyre had to resign his living for reasons of health, and
Bishop Hornby persuaded him to take over the parish of
Chollerton in Northumberland. John Hawes s new vicar
was the Reverend Herbert Frith, who came to the Holy Re
deemer from St. Mary Magdalen s, Munster Square. He was
another extreme Anglo-Catholic, so there was no alteration
in the services.

Within the parish was situated the motherhouse of the
Sisters of Bethany, a community founded in 1866. One of the
sisters Sister Rosina was especially loved and respected
by the poor because of her detachment and humility. A mu
tual devotion to St. Francis of Assisi led to the development
of a close friendship between her and Father Hawes. Largely
through his influence Sister Rosina severed her connection
with the Sisters of Bethany, and together with three mem
bers of the Society left her convent in Lloyd Square resolved
to establish a new community whose manner of life would
conform to die most strict interpretation of holy poverty.
Father Hawes found them a temporary refuge with the
Sisterhood of the Holy Comforter at Edmonton, north of
London, a small community which was in the process of be
coming Benedictine, and was in close touch with Dom Aelred
Carlyle. The latter arranged for Mother Rosina and her
three companions to move to Hull, where the vicar of St.
Mary s, Sculcoates, offered them a small house, which they
named "St. Damian s" after the first convent of the Poor
Clares outside Assisi. The new community adopted a brown
Franciscan habit, knotted white cord and sandals. Mother
Rosina, in her intense zeal for holy poverty, was trying to
imitate the first Poor Clare nuns, but dispensed with their
strict enclosure. Several young women joined her at Hull,

The Toor Man s Follower 25

and it was not long before they won the hearts of the poor
working-class families around them.

The success of Mother Rosina s venture aroused Father
Hawes s desire to establish a similar community for men.
The obvious thing to do was to seek admission to the Society
of Divine Compassion whose Rule and manner of life ap
proximated fairly closely to that of the first companions of
St. Francis of Assisi. It seems, however, that Father Hawes had
serious doubts as to whether these quasi-Franciscans were
really "Catholic!" Moreover, the Brothers wore a black habit,
like that of the Friars Minor Conventual. He could not con
ceive of any true son of St. Francis wearing anything but
brown or gray. So he felt he could not throw in his lot with
the "black friars" who were working among the poor in the
East London suburb of Plaistow. Their spirit struck him as
too parochial, and the thought of having to recite the day
hours in English instead of the Breviary in Latin was more
than he could face.

In his own words: "With the ignorance of youth and the
presumptuous folly of a spiritual dilettante, I was determined
to found a new community myself. Just as Aelred Carlyle had
revived or re-established the Order of St. Benedict in the
Church of England, so would I revive the Order of Friars
Minor in communion with Canterbury. Before my imagina
tion rose up all the glamor of the coarse brown tunic, white
knotted rope, and sandals, and poor brethren living in a
humble friary." It would appear that Father Hawes s knowl
edge of Franciscan life was derived mainly from his reading.
There is no evidence that he ever took the trouble to visit
any of the then fairly numerous communities in England
of the Observant Friars Minor or the Capuchins or that he
ever studied their constitutions.

In the summer of 1906 Abbot Aelred wrote to Father
Hawes the astonishing news that he was about to become the

26 The Hermit of Cat Island

owner of the Isle of Caldey, off the coast of South Wales,
thanks to the generosity of a young man who had offered to
lend him six thousand pounds and take a mortgage of eight
thousand pounds on the property. The Abbot asked Father
Hawes if he would be prepared to resign his curacy in Lon
don and take on the job of architect at Galdey. At the same
time Father Hawes could combine architectural work with
the novitiate which it had been understood he would make
under Abbot Aelred as a probation for the Franciscan life.
Such an offer could not be turned down, so in June Father
Hawes slipped away from the slums of Clerkenwell without
any farewell sermon or demonstrative sendoffs.

After a brief holiday with his parents in Sussex, Father
Hawes, described at this time as "very Roman in appearance,
with his little cape and many buttons on his soutane, and
a jaw which essayed to meet his nose/ traveled to South
Wales with Abbot Aelred toward the end of July 1906. The
latter, with even more than his usual optimism, was hopeful
of raising at least seven thousand pounds to cover the cost
of the really essential buildings which he pictured. The first
thing he wanted were plans for a guesthouse. Then would
follow a temporary monastery, referred to as "The Gate
house," to accommodate between thirty and forty monks. Al
though the community numbered no more than twenty,
Abbot Aelred believed firmly that within a few years it
would increase to more than a hundred. So Father Hawes
was told that he must also plan a future abbey which would
be a worthy successor to the great Benedictine masterpieces
of medieval England. In addition to these new buildings, the
Abbot wanted the church of the medieval priory restored;
stalls for the brethren must be made at once and a new stone
altar erected. Then the even more ancient village church
must be restored and beautified. A round tower on the cliffs
must be converted into an oratory.

The Poor Man s Follower

27

Abbey Gatehouse, Caldey Island

Never before had the priest-architect been given so much
work to do in so little time. Bryan Burstall, the wealthy
benefactor who had lent the money to buy the island, had
offered to take on the job of clerk-of-works. He and Father
Hawes settled down in a vacant cottage, where they lived
in the utmost simplicity, and worked from dawn till dusk
to get everything ready for the arrival of the community.

"The Homecoming/ as it was called in after years, took
place on October 18, 1906. For the first six months the
brethren occupied the somewhat inconvenient quarters of
the medieval priory. It was within its stone-vaulted church
that Father Hawes was clothed with the novice s habit and
given the religious name of Jerome. He and Burstall, who
was made an oblate and known as Brother Illtud, were kept
busy. Everything had to be assembled lime to be burned,
workmen engaged; bricks, tiles and timber to be brought
over from the mainland and unloaded on the beach at low

28 The Hermit of Cat Island

tide. life on Caldey was very different from what it had been
at Glerkenwell for the previous three years, but Brother
Jerome seems to have enjoyed himself, up to a point.

In his reminiscences he tells us of rising at midnight to
recite Matins and Lauds, of the strict silence broken only by
an hour s recreation which was daily for the novices and
three times a week for the seniors, and the meatless meals
unappetizingly prepared by amateur cooks. Brother Jerome
was introduced here to monastic manual labor, and learned
to wash clothes and to bake bread in an old-fashioned brick
oven. He admits that when occupied with ax or trowel he
used "to find it very irksome* to have to lay down his tools
when the church bell rang for one of the Little Hours. He
speaks highly of the spirit of fervor and charity among the
brethren, and how much he enjoyed bathing in some of the
lovely sandy coves. He reveals that "the even course of life
was sometimes agitated," especially when two of the Brothers
left the island without warning, to be received into the
Catholic and Roman Church. It was about this time that
Abbot Aelred had to contradict the widely circulated reports
that he had "sought recognition of his community from the
Abbot Primate of the Roman Obedience." As Brother Je
rome remarks: "A tremor from Rome had shaken the foun
dations of this Benedictine house built on the shifting sands
of Anglo-Catholicism portent of the earthquake which
would occur six years later with the conversion of the major
ity of these Anglican monks."

Reading between the lines of these memoirs of a year on
Caldey Island, one forms the impression that relations be
tween the novice and his dynamic Abbot were often some
what strained, chiefly because of the latter s utter indifference
to monastic poverty when it concerned buildings. Brother
Jerome confesses that it was annoying, when he had been
working on plans and elevations, to have the Abbot scrap

The Poor Man s Follower 29

the drawings and insist on something more ambitious. The
abbatial imagination ran riot and costs were never counted.
Nothing but the biggest and the most ornate would satisfy
him. Brother Jerome, on the other hand, was more interested
in humble little hermitages like those of the first Capuchins.
"I myself," he wrote, "longed to rebuild the ruins of the
hermitage on St. Margaret s Island, adjoining Caldey." The
basically more practical-minded novice could not work up
any real enthusiasm for a dream abbey planned on a scale
greater than that of any medieval Cluniac monastery.

By the summer of 1907 it became quite clear to Abbot
Aelred that he had lost all hope of turning Brother Jerome
into a Benedictine, or of making permanent use of him on
Caldey. So he called in another architect, and all those plans,
sections and elevations which the novice had drawn under
holy obedience were laid aside and forgotten. The cardboard
model of the dream abbey on which he had worked so hard
was destroyed.

Now, to his joy, Brother Jerome was given more freedom.
He started to grow a beard, and was allowed to retire to a
cave in the limestone cliffs, where for a few weeks he lived
as a hermit. Every morning, after a dip in the sea, he walked
to the village church where he said Mass. His austerity and
fervor filled one of the novices with such wonder and admira
tion that he confided to the hermit that he would throw in
his lot with him, once the Franciscan brotherhood had been
established. Abbot Aelred must have felt that Brother Jerome
was a dangerous influence, and that the sooner he left the
island, the better it would be, otherwise more novices even
professed monks might be tempted to desert St. Benedict
for St. Francis.

At the end of the year of his novitiate, therefore, Brother
Jerome left Caldey to begin his Franciscan adventure. He
had not, however, been professed, for he was told that he

30 The Hermit of Cat Island

needed further probation. This was a blow to the eager
would-be friar and he decided to go to Essex to the novitiate
of the Society of the Divine Compassion. Here again he was
disappointed. The superior of the community, Father Wil
liam Sirr, refused to accept the validity of the Caldey proba
tion, and regretted that te felt unable to profess Brother
Jerome. If the latter felt called to be a Franciscan, why
could he not join the Society of the Divine Compassion in
stead of wanting to found a rival brotherhood?

Brother Jerome did not know what to do. Perhaps a further
test was needed. He resolved to follow the example of St.
Francis by undertaking a pilgrimage in the medieval man
ner he would go on a tramp through England.

One of the Caldey Benedictines Dom George Chambers
who was spending the year of his diaconate as curate of St.
Philip s, Dalston, put him up for a week or two.

Having made his confession and said Mass in St. Philip s
Church on the feast of St. Francis, October 4, 1907, Brother
Jerome changed into the "beggar s clothes" which he had
brought with him a shabby jacket, flannel shirt, patched
trousers and an old cap. Without a penny in his pocket, with
nothing but a breviary and a crucifix, he stepped barefooted
into the street at midnight. With his face smeared with mud,
and with his ragged, unkempt beard, nobody he met was
likely to recognize him as a priest of the Church of England.
"It was my strict rule never to beg," he recorded, "but
take anything offered me, and to do any work when I could.
God and St. Francis provided for all my wants. As I walked
along the road, a man would call to me and throw me a
penny. Or some shy-looking fellow would come up and press
a sixpence into my hand. After four days tramping my feet
were cut and bleeding, then a woman leaning on the fence
of a poor little cottage called me to stop. I went in and she
brought out an old pair of boots of her husband. I learned

The Poor Man s Follower 31

much. I consorted with other tramps and outcasts; no man
could say that he was poorer than I was. I slept (or shivered)
under hedges, haystacks, railway trucks, in church porches,
in the casual wards of workhouses, and once was taken up
by a policeman, very nearly being lodged in prison. I learned
the value of a penny. I would buy a farthing s worth of tea
in a screw of paper, another of sugar and a ha penth of bread.
When rich I could pay twopence for a good night s rest in a
bed of a common lodginghouse. In a town I picked up and ate
the bread that school children had thrown away on the street.
On one occasion, after such a meal, I was forty hours without
another bite of anything only drinks of water and walked
some thirty miles on it.

"I walked with the praises of God on my lips, and joy and
liberty in my soul. I would find some quiet, deserted place
where I could stop and rest under a tree, and read my Office.
Whenever possible I would hear Mass in the morning at some
Catholic church lying on my way; or at the daily celebration
of the Eucharist in an Anglican church, but in these latter
the verger kept a very suspicious eye on me.

"After tramping through Surrey and Sussex, I arrived one
evening at Crawley, where I camped in a ditch under a scanty
hedge of thorn. It came on to rain, and the night seemed very
long. In the morning I was glad to hear the bells of St. Fran
cis Church ringing. I went to Mass. It was Sunday, but no
body looked askance or stared at me as people would have
done in an Anglican church. After Mass I went round to the
friary and rang the bell. A kind bearded Capuchin lay Brother
gave me a huge cup of tea and two big slices of bread, and let
me sit down in the entrance hall to eat my breakfast.

"I decided that I would call at St. Hugh s Charterhouse,
about ten miles from Crawley. Late that evening I arrived at
this great Carthusian monastery, quite dead beat. The lay
Brother who opened the door said: We don t give anything

32 The Hermit of Cat Island

away now; we used to do, but so many came that the police
objected. If you go on to West Grinstead and call at the pres
bytery, they will give you some food there/

" How far is it? I asked. About two miles/ the Brother
replied, as he closed the great door. So all I could do was to
lie down with my head against the door. I was much too
weary to tramp any farther. It was raining hard. I dozed and
shivered through the long night, soaked to the skin. I heard
the bell toll for Matins as I lay on the hard stone pavement.
Morning dawned at last, and another lay Brother opened the
door. I asked him if I could hear Mass. No!* he said. So, re
freshed with the rest to my feet, if not to other parts of my
body, I went off down the drive.

"I tramped on day after day in a westward direction, pass
ing through Reading, until I reached Oxford. Here I called
at the Mission House of the Society of St. John the Evangelist,
better known as The Cowley Fathers/ I asked if there was
any wood I could chop, or odd jobs I could do about the yard.
Never mind about that, God bless you/ said the kindly
Anglican lay Brother, who gave me a grand feed of meat.
After leaving Oxford I made my way north to Warwick, and
so through Lincoln until at last I landed up at Hull. With
some difficulty I discovered St. Damian s Convent, where I
knocked at the door and asked the Sister if she could spare
a bit of something to eat. I laughed when she did not
recognize me. Needless to add that Mother Rosina and her
little community then gave me a real Franciscan wel
come."

The "tramp" returned to London on a small coastal
steamer. While he was hanging around the streets of Dalston,
awaiting his friend, Dom George Chambers, the police
watched him suspiciously, and warned the vicarage staff
about this disreputable character they had noticed going into
St. Philip s Church. But after Brother Jerome had taken off

The Poor Man s Follower 33

his dirty old clothes and resumed his clerical suit, there was
no more trouble.

Things then began to move quickly. Abbot Aelred, who
was on one of his fairly frequent begging tours around
Britain, wrote from the Isle of Man that his host, Goldie
Taubman, a wealthy Anglo-Catholic bachelor squire, needed
a domestic chaplain. Mr. Taubman had hoped that one of
the Caldey monks would be at his disposal, but the Abbot
explained that only one of them was in holy orders and that
he could not leave his curacy in London. So he suggested
that Brother Jerome should take on the duties, and pointed
out that the almost complete seclusion of the large property
would be ideal for a further testing of his Franciscan vocation.
This really looked like a direct answer to prayer. Within a
few days Brother Jerome and Brother Cuthbert the ex-
Caldey novice were in Liverpool. Here they met Abbot Ael
red, who was on his way back from the Isle of Man. The
Abbot, so one gathers from Brother Jerome s reminiscences,
was not exactly sympathetic. He warned him not to cross his
path, or to try to steal away any more of his community,
otherwise there would be trouble!

It was in the last week of November 1907 that the two
would-be Franciscans reached the Isle of Man by steamer
from Liverpool. No more romantic spot could have been
chosen as the setting for "reviving" the First Order of St.
Francis in communion with Canterbury than this large is
land halfway between England and Ireland. Mr. Taubman s
private chapel, dedicated to St. Bridget of Ireland, was a
restored medieval building, dating from the fourteenth cen
tury. It stood at the far end of the park, well away from the
big house, which was known as "The Nunnery."

Having taken possession of the chaplain s comfortable lit
tle house, Brother Jerome wasted no time in trying to make
it as uncomfortable as possible. He had clear and definite

34 The Hermit of Cat Island

ideas as to what a Franciscan friary ought to resemble, and
this one must be as poverty-stricken as the derelict shelter at
Rivo Torto, where St. Francis lodged with his first disciples.
Mr. Taubman was both surprised and shocked to discover
that all the easy chairs, curtains, cushions, ornaments and
tablecloths had disappeared. He noticed that the many pic
tures had been removed from the walls, and the carpets lifted.
When he asked what had been done with his furniture, he
was told that it was safely stored away in a lumber room.
The iron bedsteads with their spring mattresses were dis
mantled, and the two friars slept on the bare, hard floor
boards. Mice ran over them at night. Brother Cuthbert set
traps, and when the "Father Guardian," in true Franciscan
spirit, released the captive mice, the Brother protested. The
observance instituted by Brother Jerome seems to have been
based upon what he had read about the manner of life of
the first followers of the Little Poor Man, or that of the early
Capuchin hermits. The two young men rose at midnight to
recite Matins and Lauds in Latin. Their diet was nothing
if not penitential.

For the first few weeks Mr. Taubman was delighted to have
found a chaplain of such uncompromising "Catholic" opin
ions. But this quixotic Franciscan adventure came to an end
after little more than four months. Mr. Taubman warned
his domestic chaplain that the Isle of Man was a stronghold
of old-fashioned Protestantism, which had remained imper
vious to Anglo-Catholic influences. Hence it was most unwise
for Brother Jerome and his companion to walk in their
brown habits and sandals along the country lanes and over
the hills. The people would be scared out of their lives, be
cause the only Religious they had ever set eyes on were the
few Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy who conducted a small
school in Douglas.

The Poor Man s Follower 35

Tension increased when Mr. Taubman insisted that all the
furnishings of the chapel must be exactly as he chose to have
them. If Brother Jerome moved flower vases or candlesticks,
they were put back again immediately. The situation became
impossible. One day the two friars packed up their few per
sonal belongings and bolted from the Isle of Man. Uncertain
as this left them as to their future, it turned out to be prov
idential for Brother Jerome for he received an invitation
from Father Adderley to become one of his curates at Saltley,
Birmingham. With the blessing and permission of Dr. Gore,
the Bishop of Birmingham, Brother Jerome was professed
as a Franciscan by Father Adderley, and given charge of the
newly opened mission church of St. Francis of Assisi. The so-
called "friary" consisted of two slum cottages knocked into
one.

Shortly after Easter, 1908, Brother Jerome and Brother
Cuthbert resumed very much the same sort of life they had
attempted in the Isle of Man, and with an equal indifference
to the fact that conditions which were endurable in Italy in
the thirteenth century were more than the average young
Englishman of the early twentieth century could put up with.
But after a month or two Brother Cuthbert departed, to find
his vocation eventually as a clergyman of the Episcopal
Church in the United States, where he married a rich widow.
Then another young man, but this time not from Caldey,
came to join Brother Jerome. This was his only postulant,
and he did not manage to endure the austere life for more
than a few weeks. The Founder found himself a hermit-mis
sionary in the slums of Saltley.

It must have been a consolation to him that Mother Ros-
ina s Community of St. Francis was adding to its numbers.
By the summer of 1908 the Sisters had moved from Hull to
London, and found a house in Dalston for their convent

36 The Hermit of Cat Island

where several novices were professed by Dr. Cosmo Gordon
Lang, then Bishop of Stepney, who in after years became
Archbishop of York and then of Canterbury.

But for Brother Jerome a year had gone by and he was
still without a community. He was frustrated, and "very dis
gusted with the ritualistic, socialistic and incipient modern
ism of most of the clergy at Saltley." Furthermore, his faith
in Anglicanism had been shaken by the news received in the
early summer of 1908 that the Reverend William McGarvey
and six other American Episcopalian clergymen had been
received into the Roman Church, and the Community of
the Companions of the Holy Savior disbanded. By autumn
of 1908 it was reported that twenty-one clergymen and about
fifty laymen across the Atlantic had followed Father McGar
vey and his companions on the road to Rome. Never before
had there been such terrible losses to Anglo-Catholicism.
One day he could stand the environment no longer. The
urge came to go on the tramp again, for "a breath of real
Franciscan freedom, rags and rain." So early one Monday
morning he took off his friar s habit and donned the old
clothes of the tramp, which had been carefully preserved, and
set off on the roads. This time he intended to try street
preaching.

He traveled all day northward from Birmingham through
the squalid streets of coal-mining villages-the depressing
poverty-stricken "Black Country.- That evening he stopped
in the midst of one of these straggling villages, and with a
conscious effort, screwed up his courage to begin. Having
sung a verse or two of one of the sentimental Llanthony mis
sion hymns, the "tramp" mounted a doorstep to begin his
ennui. He spoke to the people as simply as possible of God

^d ?" f T ^ manklnd f Sin hdl > ^tance
and heaven. A crowd soon collected around the queer-look
ing bearded lay preacher. When he finished, th^prted

The Poor Man s Follower 37

forward with pennies. Brother Jerome raised his voice and
said: "Dear brothers and sisters, I don t want your money: I
am bound by a vow not to take any, but if you can give me
some food I will take what is enough for my need." Some
went back to their cottages and brought out bread and slices
of meat, tea, sugar and other food. They pressed their gifts
upon the preacher, saying, "God bless you."

Brother Jerome bade them good-by and climbed up on to
a slag heap beside a coal mine, where he found an overturned
railway wagon. Beneath it he spent the night. His sleep was
disturbed by a fierce dog that prowled around and barked
at him. After preaching in a few more villages he made his
way back to Saltley, feeling that he had achieved at least a
modicum of Franciscan release.

In those reminiscences which he jotted down many years
later Brother Jerome recalls that Father Adderley s large
vicarage was "a rendezvous for all sorts of social reformers
some wise, some cranks, some worse than cranks." Among
the men whom he mentions having met there was George
Lansbury, Cecil Chesterton and Philip Snowden all later
to become famous as social reformers and politicians. Hardly
knowing what to do with his zealous but eccentric curate,
Father Adderley suggested that he might consider joining
another Anglican clergyman who had recently launched out
into the depths of Franciscanism. This was the Reverend
George Martin, formerly the rector of a parish in Devonshire,
and very wealthy. One day he had astonished and shocked
his friends and relations by giving away all his money and
ridding himself of all other possessions. Now he was living
from hand to mouth in the slums of South London, support
ing himself by working as a common porter in the Southwark
Market.

"It seemed just the right sort of Franciscanism," Brother
Jerome writes, "but I could not bring myself to make such

38 The Hermit of Cat Island

an utter surrender, involving having no church and not being
able to celebrate Mass daily. It would also have meant aban
doning the ideal of founding an order with a regular reli
gious observance, and I just could not face giving up wearing
my brown habit.

"I think that here again I missed something higher and of
greater reality that God was then calling me to. Had I gone
to join George Martin, as Father Adderley advised, the Light
to see and enter the one true Church might have come to me
sooner; and perhaps George Martin might have come with
me."

Then while Brother Jerome was alternately toying with
the idea of finding his true vocation in life of complete pov
erty in the slums of South London and simultaneously dis
carding it, he got word that an unexpected field of work
awaited him in a place where he would be quite free to prac
tice all his Catholic ideals, and to continue as a Franciscan.

3.

"Roman Fever" [1908-1911]

ONCE again it was Bishop Hornby who came to Brother
Jerome s aid. In a letter written in the late autumn of 1908
he told the younger man of the devastation that had been
caused by a hurricane that had recently swept the Bahamas,
and appealed for both his architectural and priestly help.
The Bishop offered Brother Jerome the charge of Long Is
land, saying, "Surely this is a God-sent opportunity for a
work that only you can do/

No sooner had he finished reading the letter than Brother
Jerome felt that here was a sign. Jumping up, exultant, he
dashed straight to Father Adderley to beg his permission to
resign his curacy so that he could be off at once to the Ba
hamas. The good vicar gave his impetuous curate his bless
ing, the "friary" was dissolved, and Brother Jerome imme
diately cabled Bishop Hornby that he would be with him
at the first possible moment.

In a fit of prudence, however, he decided that it would
be wise to inoculate himself against possible future attacks
of "Roman fever/ so having said farewell to his parents he
rushed off to South Wales to spend a week on Caldey Island.
There he was both soothed and stimulated by the glamor
and romance of this "Church within the Church." In the lit-

39

40 The Hermit of Cat Island

tie chapel with its curtained tabernacle and its bitter-sweet
odor of incense, from where the black-cowled figures slipped
away into the blackness of night after a final chanting of the
Adoremus in aeternum, how could the guest have further
doubts about being truly a Catholic? Every morning he went
to the altar and celebrated Mass to have questioned his
priesthood would have been almost blasphemy. His recurring
doubts about Anglicanism were quieted by his week on Cal-
dey. All the old fires were rekindled and he returned to the
mainland convinced that the Church of his baptism would
also be the Church of his death.

But emotional ups and downs seemed to be the core and
fabric of Brother Jerome s character at this period. His re
newed faith in Anglo-Catholicism again was shaken when he
heard that his cousin, whom he had started on the High
Church path, had been received into the Roman Church.
Nevertheless, he shook off his doubts and boarded the New
York-bound Mauretania.

Off the coast of Ireland the ship began to pitch and toss in
the mountainous seas of a winter gale. Brother Jerome,
groaning in his berth, began to fear drowning and to wonder
if after all he would not have been safer in the barque of
Peter. However, he landed safely in a snowbound New York
from where he took the next steamer for Nassau. When he
arrived at the island about the middle of January 1909,
Bishop Hornby welcomed him with open arms, and the in
tensely sensitive young man found himself spellbound by the
strong sun, blue skies and seas, and the strangely attractive
tropical world of New Providence Island. Everything sur
passed his wildest expectations.

At once he resumed his Franciscan garb and set off with
the Bishop on a visitation tour of the northern islands. They
traveled in a converted North Sea smack, brought out from
England, which belonged to the Episcopalian mission and

"Roman Fever" 41

which was manned by a native crew of captain, cook and four
seamen. Brother Jerome wrote enthusiastically of the voyage,
"It was genuine sailing and seamanship as there were no
auxiliary motors in those days to help a boat get out of a
scrape. Even the mail boats at that date were sailing
schooners, and some of them were very fast."

After his initial tour of the islands, Brother Jerome settled
in on Long Island. Clarence Town, the center of his parish,
had suffered badly from the hurricane, and its church had
been razed to the ground, so that Sunday services had to be
held in the rectory, which was relatively untouched. Brother
Jerome established himself at Deadman s Cay, ten miles
north of Clarence Town, where the nave of the church was
still intact, with the chancel open to the weather. From the
debris around he built himself a little eight-foot shack, filling
the superstitious natives with horror. "An you sleep right
here in the churchyard among the graves? Aren t you afraid
of the speerits?" they asked him. To which their pastor made
answer that it was "right handy here, and that there was
plenty of room for both him and the dead people." When he
lay down at night in his little hut, big land crabs walked
over him and scrambled over the roof of the shack. Some
times he would hear a night bird let forth a weird screech.
Had he been of a nervous temperament, the loneliness would
indeed have been eerie.

But Brother Jerome looked around at his parish and felt
that his earlier missionary yearnings were about to be satis
fied. Although the population of Long Island was largely
white, made up of poor farmers or fishermen, there was no
color bar and nothing like the Jim Crow segregation of Nas
sau. The first task that faced him was to raise a new church
to take care of these people, and this would obviously re
quire all his ingenuity and architectural experience, for
to make any building hurricane proof in these storm-swept

42 The Hermit of Cat Island

islands was a herculean endeavor. There was nothing for it,
he decided, but to discard any ideas o using concrete roofs,
which would eventually crack from the salt-laden air, and get
back to the simplicity of primitive building.

His first experiment with rock roofs was on the big Lady
chapel of the ruined church at Deadman s Cay. He gathered
a crowd of willing workers, each volunteering two or three
days of labor. If a man possessed a trowel, it made him a
mason; the ownership of a rusty old saw, a carpenter. Women
and girls toted rocks on their heads, or pails of sand and water,
and some of them lighted fires over which galley pots bubbled
and boiled the hominy for a ten-o clock breakfast. Half-naked
children played underfoot with the dogs, or slept under the
palm trees. In this gay and uninhibited atmosphere the
eastern walls of the church of Deadman s Cay rose once again.
The moment came to remove the wooden centering.
Brother Jerome called out, "Now come along there, you re
a strong fellow lend a hand." The man addressed drew
back reluctantly and replied, "Not me, Farder, not for all
the bank of Nassau would I take away one of them props
from under the rocks!" Brother Jerome laughed heartily at
this and told the men to watch. He demonstrated just how
the wooden centering under the arch was to be dismantled
and removed; then after some persuasion six men volun
teered to help. Carefully they lowered the centering, leaving
the stones apparently unsupported Then Brother Jerome
put a ladder against the wall, mounted it agilely, and danced
on the crown of the arch to the great amazement of the on
lookers, who expected it to fall in promptly.

With his church repaired, Brother Jerome felt it was time
to visit the villages and church north of Deadman s Cay
Since this could be done most easily by sea he bought a small,
decked cutter, the Hispaniola, so seaworthy a vessel that he
once sailed her two hundred miles to Nassau to attend the

"Roman Fever" 43

Diocesan Synod, taking three days for the voyage. He could
sleep in the Hispaniola, and carry barrels of cement and
other building materials, and for his crew he engaged a
twelve-year-old Negro boy. Unfortunately the boat was not
usable for visiting southern Long Island, which could be
reached only by road, so he bought a sturdy pony to carry
him to the southerly villages. And there were plenty of these
visitations to be made since all except three of the dozen
churches on the island had been destroyed.

For the most part Brother Jerome was able to indulge him
self to his heart s content in "Catholic" services and externals,
for the Church of England Bahamians were considered to be
among the most advanced in the Anglican communion. But
at one of his mission stations, Simms, the overwhelmingly
white congregation was strongly opposed to High Church
ways. They informed their Franciscan pastor that they did not
want the Mass, but merely the "Lord s Supper." They would
have nothing to do with confession, images, candles, incense,
wafers or holy water. They strongly disapproved of the Virgin
Mary.

Poor Brother Jerome was terribly upset at being con
fronted by this manifestation of militant Protestantism among
his flock. He wrote, "I found the people assembled to meet
me. . . . After polite and friendly greetings we got right down
at once to brass tacks. What were my plans as to the ordering
of faith and worship in their church? The storekeeper said,
When my grandfather came here we were Church of Eng
land, and they tell us we were Protestants. When Father
Wilkinson came along, he tell us it s Catholic, and he try
and force all these strange things on us/ "

What could he tell them? Used as he was to diversities of
opinion and "glorious comprehensiveness" anything you
fancy, high or low, short of popery, its meaning had never
been brought home to Brother Jerome so clearly as at that

44 The Hermit of Cat Island

moment. Here were people on a lonely island in the Atlantic,
faithful to such tradition as they had received, who were im
patient of novelties, and to whom religion was their only
solace in fact, their only diversion. Brother Jerome had al
ways admitted that in the Church of England there were two
rival and conflicting interpretations of its basic character.
It struck him, then and there, that these people had just as
much right to hold their point of view as he had to hold his.
In a flash he saw his vision of a totally Anglo-Catholic Long
Island parish crumble to ashes. His picture of Nassau as a
united diocese was shattered to atoms. It dawned on him how
futile it was to go on imagining that the Church of England
would ever be "Catholicized" as a united body.

To quote his own words: "So I gave my reply (ignomin-
iously climbing down* before the eyes of zealous men like
Father* Wilkinson). I assured the people of Simms I would
force nothing on them or in their church against their will.
I only wanted to help them love and serve God better. My
subsequent visits to their settlement were always peaceful
and pleasant ones. At the Communion service I gave them
ordinary bread instead of the small unleavened round wafers
used elsewhere. They remained faithful and loyal to the
Church of England until some later clergyman walked again
in the steps of Father Wilkinson, when they all left the
Anglican Church and joined one or other of some new
American Protestant sects that happened to be proselytizing
in the Bahamas. Thirty years later, when I revisited Long
Island as a Catholic priest, the old people left at Simms who
remembered me gave me the heartiest welcome of all."

The church at Deadman s Cay was entirely rebuilt within
the next year. Abbot Aelred Carlyle of Caldey presented the
cast of the statue of "Notre-Dame sous Terre" in Chartres
Cathedral, similar to the small statue designed by Brother
Jerome which used to stand in the monastery chapel at Pains-

"Roman Fever" 45

thorpe. Two other altars, dedicated to the Sacred Heart and
St. Francis, were erected, also a rood screen with a large cruci
fix. Over the high altar was a baldachino with four Greek
Doric columns, carrying semicircular arches. Brother Jerome
was determined that this church should look as "Catholic"
as he could make it. An old Negro lady, when she first saw
it, held up her apron and curtsied, exclaiming, "Am 1 dat
beautiful, dat de Hebenly Jerusalem!"

The following reminiscences give us an idea of Brother
Jerome s state of mind at this time, "Never in my life, and
especially since I became a clergyman of the Church of Eng
land, had I ever spoken a word against the Roman Catholic
Church or the Pope. Bound up with my large altar edition
of the Book of Common Prayer was the Latin canon of the
Missale Romanum. Every time, and that was daily, I cele
brated the Communion service I added secretly the Latin
canon, and prayed that the holy Catholic Church might be
granted peace, protected, united, and governed throughout
the world cum famulo tuo Papa nostro Pio! In all good
faith I believed I had valid Orders and was a real Catholic
priest. I always taught the people that as we said the Creed,
and recited the words *I believe in the Holy Catholic Church/
that the Church was governed by bishops and that the chief
bishop and head of the whole Church was the successor of
St. Peter the Pope.

"How fervent and responsive were those dear people on
Long Island! What a crowded church we had on Sunday
mornings! They traveled the roads barefooted, carrying their
shoes and socks, putting these on by the churchyard before
entering the building. A couple of men with violins, under
the rood screen, led the singing, and if there had been any
organ, I don t think you could have heard it!"

The biggest church to be rebuilt was St. Paul s, Clarence
Town. Brother Jerome and his workers labored over this

46 The Hermit of Cat Island

large structure; then, just after the centering of the chancel
arches had been removed, a terrible storm arose. About mid
night the whole roof collapsed and fell in. The work had to
be started all over again, this time with the walls a foot
thicker. Since then many hurricanes have swept over Long
Island, but the church at Clarence Town, with its twin
towers, has stood secure.

More than the physical collapse of a church was in store
for Brother Jerome, however. In spite of his contentment
with his Bahamian existence and the apparent fulfillment of
his vocation, a new series of shocks began to undermine the
last of his wavering Anglican convictions. For a number of
years he had taken a keen interest in the Society of the Atone
ment, an American religious order founded by the Reverend
Lewis T. Wattson, known in religion as Father Paul James
Francis, and Mother Lurana, a former member of the Ang
lican Sisterhood of the Holy Child Jesus. The Society, Fran
ciscan in spirit, had as its purpose to pray for Church unity
and reunion with the Holy See. The Church Unity Octave,
first observed in 1908, had met a sympathetic response from
Brother Jerome, and The Prince of the Apostles, written
jointly by Father Paul and the Reverend Spencer Jones, had
had a pronounced influence on his thinking.

When the news reached him that the Graymoor commu
nity had "abandoned the sinking ship" to board the Barque
of Peter, he felt that the ground had been cut from under his
feet. He immediately wrote to Mother Rosina, whose views
were so similar to his own, only to discover after an exchange
of letters that she had come to the conclusion that she had
no alternative but to be received into the Roman Catholic
Chwch. Mother Rosina wrote that she and a few companions
were leaving their convent in North London and embark
ing for North America. A short time thereafter Brother Ter-
ome heard that she and her companions had been reconciled

"Roman Fevei" 47

to the Mother Church at Graymoor and had applied for ad
mission to the novitiate of the Society of the Atonement.

Added to this news, which then and there almost cata
pulted Brother Jerome into the Catholic Church, came word
that several leading Anglo-Catholic clergymen in Brighton,
along with many of their parishioners, had made their sub
mission to Rome. His sole hope lay in Abbot Aelred, who
wrote that Anglicans must make an even more militant stand
for the faith and fight all symptoms of "Roman fever," and
who enlarged optimistically on the foundations he hoped to
make at Pershore, Prinknash and Llanthony. The Abbot al
most managed to rekindle Brother Jerome s waning enthusi
asm for Anglican Franciscanism by describing his plan for
purchasing a property at Assisi to serve as an Anglo-Catholic
guesthouse. It was almost enough to send Brother Jerome
posthaste to Umbria where he could see himself saying Mass
daily in the world of St. Francis.

Nevertheless, his blissful isolation on his Caribbean island
had cracked. Hard as he tried to follow Abbot Aelred s advice
and to console himself with church building and the "Cathol-
icization" of his warm-hearted flock, he found himself in a
continuous state of spiritual depression. When he read in
The Church Times that the Bishop of Salisbury had preached
in a Lutheran church in Germany, that the Bishop of Man
chester had refused to allow his clergy to wear vestments, that
the Bishop of Hereford had invited dissenters to receive Holy
Communion, and that the Bishop of Liverpool had asked
nonconformist ministers to take part in interdenominational
missions in his diocese, it was difficult for him not to despair
of Anglo-Catholicism.

So Brother Jerome drifted on from week to week, from
month to month. Then one morning in the late autumn of
1910 he opened a copy of the Graymoor publication, The
Lamp, which had just come in the mail. An article on "The

48 The Hermit of Cat Island

Necessity for Certitude" caught his attention. Its clear reason
ing and biting logic were so compelling that he read it
through twice, then threw the magazine to the floor, exclaim
ing, "That finishes me!"

"From that hour," he wrote, "I began to set my house in
order and to pack up. My heart had long been in Rome, but
now my head was bringing me over boldly. ..."

On the Sunday after the Feast of the Conversion of St.
Paul, January 25, 1911, the first service was held in the re
stored church at Clarence Town. Standing before the ba
roque stone altar, dressed in his vestments, Brother Jerome
told his congregation that he was going to Nassau for a visit,
but he did not tell his people how long he would be gone.
He did not return for thirty years. When he left the church
after Mass he saw the mail boat in the harbor, three or four
days before she was expected. In order to get on board he had
to rush so much that most of his possessions, including his
books, were left behind.

The moment the boat docked at Nassau, Brother Jerome
went straight to Bishop Hornby to tell him that he had de
cided to "go over to Rome."

"I see it s no good arguing with you any more/* said the
kindly Bishop, after a half-hour s discussion. "Let s drop the
subject and go for a walk."

The Bishop asked Brother Jerome as a final favor to dis
cuss the Roman claims with Dr. Mortimer a well-known
Episcopalian theologian of High Church opinions when he
arrived in New York. He also informed Brother Jerome that
he would continue to regard him as one of his clergy and pay
his salary until such time (if it came) that he had actually
been received into the Roman Church.

"Dear Bishop Hornby, so long my faithful friend how it
saddened me to give him this pain," wrote Brother Jerome.
"We always corresponded up to the time of his death, and
I met him again in England.

"Roman Fever" 49

"The following Sunday I declined to say Mass, but
preached at St. Mary s my final ministration as an Anglican
clergyman/

The fortnightly mail steamer from Jamaica called at Nas
sau on its way to New York. There were few passengers on
that trip, but among them was Brother Jerome who had a
three-berth cabin to himself, and "was soon pretty seasick."
He had discarded his Franciscan habit before leaving Nas
sau and assumed clerical garb, which somewhat confused
the steward who came to his cabin to attend to him. "Catholic
priest, Father?" he inquired. "No," answered Brother Je
rome, "Episcopalian, but I hope to become a Catholic very
soon." The steward remarked: "Now that s grand!" and from
that moment did all he could for his seasick passenger, telling
him about his home, his wife and children in New York,
describing St. Patrick s Cathedral and many other churches
in that city, and also the religious orders, saying that all
would come easy in no time. "It was a cheering introduction
at the start of my setting out to follow the Star," writes
Brother Jerome, who adds that "the spontaneous brotherly
welcome of this kindly Irish layman was far more sympathetic
and encouraging than anything I got from any of the priests
I first met with."

In deference to Bishop Hornby, Brother Jerome, as soon
as he arrived in New York, immediately called on Dr.
Mortimer at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin. But the two
found little to talk about, and Brother Jerome soon departed
to find a tailor s shop, where he removed his clerical collar
and bought a gray ready-made suit.

Wandering around New York, the self-unfrocked Anglican
priest discovered the Church of St. Paul the Apostle on Co
lumbus Avenue, between West Fifty-ninth and West Sixtieth
streets. The front was decorated with a huge placard an
nouncing, "Mission to Non-Catholics: Subject Tonight: The
Everlasting Catholic Church." As he remarked in his diary:

50 The Hermit of Cat Island

"How the good God had got everything just nicely ready
for me! Next morning I heard Mass in this big church of the
Paulist Fathers, and what balm to my soul that was: the real
thing this time without doubt. As soon as I had made up my
mind to accept unconditionally all that the Holy Roman
Church holds and teaches, I thought I would have trouble
in dispossessing my scruples and inner feeling that I was al
ready a validly ordained priest. But as I knelt in the great
church, in such restful peace and absolute certainty, all these
notions drifted away: I was just a layman and Anglican
Orders were absolutely, without a reservation, null and void
from the Catholic point of view."

That same day Hawes boarded the train for Peekskill,
and climbed the steep road that led up the hill to the then
very simple buildings of the Convent of the Society of the
Atonement. Here he met Mother Lurana and Father Paul
James Francis. He recorded in after years that "their wel
come seined rather stiff and formal, with no cheering
warmth. There was an air of constraint in the atmosphere,
not at all what I expected to find among Franciscans. I in
quired after Mother Rosina and the other Sisters from Dais-
ton, and, of course, was anxious to see them. I was informed
that they were here no longer. Next day came another dis
appointment. I was impatient to be received into the Church,
but Father Paul told me I must wait and have at least two
months instruction. The Archbishop of New York had for
bidden him to receive any more converts straightway off.
Since I had come to Graymoor, I made up my mind to
stay on and see things through."

It is not difficult to understand that the neophyte found
Graymoor somewhat depressing, if only climatically. It was
midwinter, and the contrast between the gray skies, the snow
and those dark woods above the Hudson River, with the
sunshine and bright colors of the Bahamas may have added

"Roman Fever" 51

to his sense of frustration. Forty years later he wrote: "The
time passed wearily. The slow, drawn-out Offices in the
chapel, with lots of extra-long prayers and devotions tacked
on, bored me. The food was almost uneatable, the staple diet
being stale salt herring and half-boiled potatoes, after Lent
started. An Anglican nonceremonial use of incense would
have been welcome to counteract the knock-me-down fishy
smell. I have hated fish ever since. Usually it was bitterly cold
in the dormitory cubicles. I used to get up two or three times
a night to replenish the anthracite stove."

Thirty-two years after that visit to Graymoor he still re
membered "the horrible shock on the first Sunday there. The
Mass was celebrated in the little wooden church of St. John s-
in-the-Wilderness, originally an Episcopalian place of wor
ship. Father Paul said the Mass in Latin, of course, and he was
vested in an old Anglican chasuble of that arty* dull sage-
green color with an art-russet Y shaped across. My heart sank.
To make matters worse there were even the "correct* brass
flower vases and candlesticks. Mother Lurana and the half-a-
dozen Sisters sang everything in English (by permission of
the Apostolic Delegate, Monsignor Falconio) , starting off
with Lord have mercy on us/ but decently omitting their
late former petition to incline our hearts to keep this lawl
Then followed, Glory be to God on high/ and I believe/
all to the ill-fitting music of the Missa de Angelis. My heart
sank. I had reveled in the consolation of hearing Mass at the
Paulist Father s Church in New York City, but now I seemed
to have dropped back into an environment of Anglicanism.
I was hungry and thirsty for Catholic worship, but here I
was with everything I thought I had done with forever.

"After a couple of weeks along came a Visitor deputed
by the Archbishop of New York a grand old Friar Minor,
a great missionary amongst non-Catholics. In the dormitory
his cubicle was next to mine. I could hear him not only groan-

52

The Hermit of Cat Island

ing (because of his infirmities) but praying aloud nearly the
whole night through. He altered a lot of things and told
Father Paul that when he had sung Mass, the choir, i.e., the
Sisters, must sing all their part in Latin, in spite of what the
Apostolic Delegate had granted. I don t care/ roared the old
friar, I tell you it s got to stop and right away. It s confusing
and disedifying the laity."

In spite of his distaste for the Graymoor services, John was
not completely unhappy during his stay. For one thing, his
friend Mother Rosina had entered the novitiate of the Fran
ciscan Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart at Peekskill,
New York, and he often made the six-mile walk to see her.
Another project that kept him occupied was the design for
St. Francis* Chapel at Graymoor. Although certain modifi
cations were made to the original plan by Ralph Adams Cram
and Carlton Strong, essentially the design was John s. The
fim stone was laid on March 17, 191 1, two days before John s
reception into the Church, and the dedication took place on
January 18, 1912.

St. Francis Chapel, Graymoor

"Roman Fever" 53

About a month after his first visit Father Francis, whose
views on liturgical practice John found so sympathetic, re
turned to Graymoor and John made his confession to him.

"For three days previously/* he wrote, "I had been full
of scruples. I became more and more anxious and miserable.
I felt sure that this general confession would take me at least
an hour, but in a businesslike way the holy friar rushed me
over all the hurdles in five minutes; and then at the act of
contrition he just lifted my soul right up to God."

Everything was ready for the final step, and on St. Joseph s
Day, March 19, 1911, Father Paul administered conditional
baptism to John Hawes and received him into the Roman
Catholic Church.

From the Rockies to the Beda [1911-1915]

Now that the great decision was behind him John was faced
with an uncertain future. Father Paul seems to have been dis
appointed that his convert showed no desire to enter the
Society of the Atonement, but John told him that if he chose
to test his Franciscan vocation it would be with the Capuchins
or the Friars Minor of the Leonine Union. Although in later
years Hawes was willing to admit that his first impressions of
Graymoor may have been prejudiced, he was by nature drawn
toward the more baroque and rococo externals of Catholi
cism, and it is understandable that he should have found the
ethos of Graymoor uncongenial.

Since returning to the Bahamas was out of the question,
he took ship for England, dreading his first meeting with
his parents. To his surprise his reception in the Catholic
Church had not been the blow to them that he had expected.
His father merely remarked, "I thought our Church is wide
enough for anything and that you could have found all you
wanted without leaving it." His mother expressed herself
somewhat more warmly. "Dear John, I feel that you have
done the right and straightforward thing. I never could feel
happy while you took up with all those imitations of Cath-

54

From the Rockies to the Beda 55

olicism in our Protestant Church, and now God s blessing
be with you."

Relieved and happy, John went off to South London for
a long talk with the Father Guardian of the Capuchin Friary
at Peckham. This wise friar explained to John that since his
previous life had been so varied and independent, and since
he was no longer so young, he would undoubtedly find the
discipline of the novitiate too difficult. He advised him to
become a secular priest.

Immediately offers to Hawes were forthcoming. Bishop
Amigo of the diocese of Southwark was eager to have him;
Father Filmer suggested that he join the Guild of Ransom
and devote himself to preaching for the conversion of Eng
land; the resident priest of Bermuda offered to send him to
the seminary at Halifax. John s old friend Charles Selby-
Hall, who together with his wife had been received into the
Catholic Church at almost the same time as had John, begged
him to let them pay his expenses at the Beda College, Rome,
pointing out that this would leave him free to make a final
choice of a diocese later on.

After the protracted nervous tension, mental struggle and
external upheaval of a past life and relationships, many a new
convert is apt to relax and sink down spiritually exhausted.
When John delayed taking steps to receive "Roman Orders"
some of his friends began to wonder if he had become a
Roman Catholic layman in order to put off the burden of
pastoral labors and to escape from spiritual responsibilities.
But the truth was that he now wanted to look around and take
his bearings. If there were real difficulties in the way of his
becoming a Franciscan, the same reasons held good for not
rushing into the other openings that presented themselves.

"Nol I was too independent. I would go to work and earn
enough to pay my own way," John wrote. "I decided to cross

56 The Hermit of Cat Island

the Atlantic again, this time to Canada. Right away I booked
my passage on an emigrant ship, the Lake Ghamplain. I was
one in a six-berth cabin without a porthole. We had to keep
the electric light on all night because of the swarms of rats
that ran over us. One man, putting on his boots, found a nest
of seven baby rats in one of them. The food was even worse
than what I had tried to eat at Graymoor. The stewards swept
most of it off the plates and threw it overboard. Then off New
foundland we ran into a field of huge icebergs, next into a
dense fog, and for three days lay to with continuous dismal
blowing of the foghorn. My only solace was to repeat again
and again Ave Marts Stella. It was the same year the Titanic
rushed to her doom, but the old emigrant ship was not out to
make records."

The ship berthed at Quebec, where John first made a pil
grimage to the shrine of St. Anne de Beaupr<. Then he set
out for Montreal and Toronto where he made a fruitless tour
of architects offices, but failed to find a job. It was a slack
time and no new buildings were being put up. He lodged in
Salvation Army shelters, having no dollars to waste on hotels.
Perhaps he would have better luck farther west, he thought,
so he boarded an emigrant train which took him to Calgary.
As he wandered through the streets of Calgary he noticed an
advertisement: "CP.R. Crow s Nest Pass Construction Camp.
Twelve teamsters wanted." As he knew something about
horses, he went into the office of the Canadian Pacific, paid
a couple of dollars over the counter, and signed on, receiving
a railroad pass to MacLeod. He jolted into this small ranching
town at midnight and dossed in a railroad shed. It was bit
terly cold, knd he had only five cents left, so the following
morning, after a cup of hot coffee, he set off to walk the twelve
miles to Pitcher s Creek near where the camp was set up
Before long the sun came out, and the prospective teamster
began to feel very weary. At last he arrived at the busy con-

From the Rockies to the Beda 57

struction camp and presented himself to the boss, who told
John that he could start the next day. The scenery, so he tells
us, was "a glorious picture of pine and fir-covered hills, just at
the foot of the snowcapped Rocky Mountains. The camp lay
beside a rushing mountain river in a narrow ravine, over
which a great trestle bridge, 140 feet high, was being built."

The railroad company gave their employees splendid food
and plenty of everything. The ex-Anglican Franciscan slept
in a tent with three other men. It was very damp, and since
the mattresses were on the ground he used to wake up so stiff
with rheumatism he could hardly move. When the sun rose,
the heat was scorching, but it was very cold at night, and there
were frequent hail- or snow- storms.

At first John worked with pick and shovel breaking up
into small pieces rocks which had been dynamited to clear
a way for tractors and horses. After a few days of this back-
breaking labor he was thankful to be put on to driving a
"dump wagon" and team of mules. Three days of one week
he and another man were sent with their wagons to fetch
lumber from the sawmills higher up in the mountains. "That
was very jolly, driving through the pine forests," he recalls.
"On the second day, owing to the other man s wagon sticking
in a bad place, we had to sleep at the sawmills, a most delight
ful lonely spot right in the woods. Of course the wagons had
no springs and bumped you all to bits. This I should not
have minded if only my mate had not sworn and blasphemed
the moment anything went wrong with his wagon. I found
all the men very friendly, but alas! their swearing and filthy
talk made their company almost unendurable. It was hard
work loading and unloading the wagons just the two of us
to lift beams 8 by 8 feet square and 25 feet long! There were
a dozen or so on each wagon, and sometimes we had to unload
and reload a wagon in the track."

If nothing else, the former clergyman was getting a look

58 The Hermit of Gat Island

at a different side of life, and gaining experience of common
humanity which would be most valuable in the not very dis
tant future. To get to Mass on Sunday he had to walk ten
miles from the camp to Pincher s Creek. After the blasphemy
and foulness of the camp, which "made it just like hell to be
in, * it was a joy to see the spire of the church in the distance,
and to hear the welcome and restful sound of its bell.

"When the harmonium played and the singers in the west
gallery sang Asperges me hyssopo et mundabor it brought
the tears to my eyes it was like a bath after wading through
the mire." John wrote, "How wonderful is the Catholic
Church all over the wide world everywhere you find it, and
just the same familiar worship; the same familiar images of
the saints how homely and companionable they feel, es
pecially when you happen to feel lost and lonely. When I was
wandering about the streets of a big city such as Winnipeg,
one couldn t help feeling utterly lonesome as the shades of
evening came on, but to turn in to one of the ever-open
Catholic churches and see the glimmering lamps and flicker
ing tapers, also the silent kneeling worshipers, gave one a
sense of home and companionship at once. It brought re
newed courage and hope. There is a wonderful fellowship
in the Catholic and Roman Church."

It seems to have delighted John that all across Canada the
priests wore their soutanes in the cities, villages and on the
railroads. It pleased him also that so many of the priests had
beards, presumably because he always seems to have associated
a bearded face with St. Francis of Assisi.

Work at the railroad construction camp closed down in
the fall of 1911. For two or three weeks John added to his
experiences by becoming a farm laborer: driving a wagon to
fetch in hay cut on the prairies, cleaning out the stables daily,
milking cows, and running a cream separator. Then, feeling
that being so near the Rocky Mountains it would be a pity

From the Rockies to the Beda 59

to leave without seeing them a bit closer, he made a three
days tour and walked right through the Crowsnest Pass as
far as the border of British Columbia, and back again. He
slept free of charge in the little log cabins, already snow-
covered, which were spaced at regular intervals of about ten
miles at the side of the railroad track.

He made his way back east in charge of a van of cattle on
a freight train, his chief duty being to let out the beasts and
water them in the stockyards at the main depots. He traveled
in the "caboose" with the guard, and often sat in a swivel
armchair up in the lookout trunk on the roof, enjoying the
glorious panorama of mountains, forests and lakes.

At every hundred-mile section the train was shunted, and
the caboose and guard changed for new ones. To avoid losing
his cattle van, John got in and slept in the hayrack over the
beasts heads. Among the cows was a large bull, which he
had been instructed to leave tethered and to fetch its water.
However, at Three Rivers this bull broke loose and stamped
out with the rest. "It was plenty of trouble to catch him/*
John said. "I remember one tense moment when I was left
alone on the floor of the arena, like a matador in a Spanish
bull ring; with the bull advancing on me with angry eyes,
fed up with railroad travel! Now s your chance, seize him
by the ring in his nose/ yelled the stockman on the fence.
The bull lowered his nose to the ground just in time, and I
hopped up the fence pretty smartly to join the other men/*

At the end of his journey John received word that his
mother was dangerously ill. He immediately booked passage
for England and a few weeks later arrived in Surrey, where
he stayed with his parents at Sutton. There the Catholic
priest, finding that the new member of his congregation had
practiced as an architect, asked him to make designs for the
enlargement of the church, a project which was begun in
the spring of 1912.

60 The Hermit of Cat Island

Then John was offered the very attractive post o tutor to
the son of the United States ambassador to Mexico. He toyed
with the idea for a time, stimulated by the thought of seeing
Mexico, but just when he had almost made up his mind to
accept the offer, Bishop Amigo turned up at Sutton to make
a canonical visitation of the parish. When John told the
Bishop of his new expectations, the latter replied, "Why
waste time, my dear son, in going to Mexico and the end of
the earth time you might be giving to God?"

John interpreted this remark as another call to the priest
hood, and once again Mr. and Mrs. Selby-Hall pleaded with
him to accept financial help. Because of his wife, Charles
Selby-Hall could not without great difficulties have become
a priest himself, but the two of them wanted to give a priest
to God, "Finally they broke down my stubborn pride and in
dependence," wrote their friend. "May God bless and reward
them."

John went to talk with the Bishop of Southwark, who
arranged for him to go to Rome and enter the Beda College
without further delay. He arrived there toward the end of
January 1912, and on Candlemas Day he accompanied the
rector, Monsignor George, to the Vatican, and had an audi
ence with Pope Pius X. On being informed that this student
was a convert clergyman, the Pope laid his hand on his head,
saying, "Bravo! bravo!" He gave John his special blessing
and prayed that God would grant him all manner of consola
tions.

To a man of John Hawes s varied experiences it must have
been far from easy to settle down to the life of a Roman stu
dent at the age of thirty-six after the independent existence
to which he had grown accustomed. But that he fit easily
into the life at the Beda is amply shown by the testimony of
one of his fellow students, Father Henry E. G. Rope, who
spoke of him as modest, yet strong, self-possessed, companion-

From the Rockies to the Beda 61

able and charitable. Of his many-faceted personality and gifts
Father Rope wrote,

"I used to say that he had every talent save that of lan
guages, in which his concords, genders and accents were apt

to stumble Even here, however, his skill in sign language

helped him out. He told me he had once been benighted in
some north Italian countryside, and sought shelter in a cot
tage. Having little Italian, he leaned against the doorpost
and pretended to snore. A small child at once divined and
interpreted to her parents his petition; their generous hospi
tality was his. ..."

Father Rope went on to detail some of John s pen-and-ink
jokes. "Poking fun at my too uncritical zeal for medievalism,
he drew me saying Office by the light of a glowworm, with a
large box in the corner inscribed, Best Glowworms Keep
Dry/ from shall we say Messrs. Urns and Boats. Another
time, noting my fondness for the Byzantine Mass at the Greek
College, he pictured the Beda ChapeP transformed to the

Greek rite Yet another sketch showed me sleeping calmly

on a bed protected by a rim of prickly pinnacles, and No
more holy water required. . . . I need hardly add that his
brave, cheerful and kindly presence greatly enhanced the
happiness of our college life in that old Rome in which death
speed and din were not yet deemed the summum bonum. . . .

"Truly Franciscan was his ever-fresh joy in God s creation,
his love of wild creatures, his keen sense of beauty in nature
and true art. Like Chesterton, he kept through life the open
heart of childhood. . . . " 1

During his first year at the Beda John took a step which,
considering his attachment to Franciscanism, it is surprising
that he waited twenty months to put into action. He sought
admission to the Third Order of St. Francis and on the feast

i Henry E. G. Rope, "John C. Hawes: Father Jerome/ O.SJF.," The Beda
Review, September, 1956, p. 11.

62 The Hermit of Cat Island

of the saint, October 4, 1912, he was clothed as a tertiary in
the basilica of San Francesco at Assisi. The following year,
cm December 8, "Brother John Francis Xavier Hawes" made
his tertiary profession in the Capuchin church of St. Law
rence of Brindisi, Rome. In spite of Anglican failures and
Roman rejection, John Hawes had at last realized his strong
est desire: to be formally united to the Franciscan Order.

Several months after his clothing, in March 1913, word
reached John of the corporate reception into the Catholic
Church of Abbot Aelred Carlyle and twenty-two out of the
thirty-three men who made up the Caldey Benedictine com
munity. Two months later John went to meet his old friend
and one-time religious superior when he arrived in Rome.
"We went straight to St. Peter s," John wrote to Selby-Hall.
"The Abbot of Maredsous said Mass at St. Peter s tomb;
Aelred and I served him vested in cottas. Then we all had
breakfast in the sacristy." What a joy it must have been for
these two men who had traveled such a long road to Rome
to meet in the heart of the Church of which they had so long
considered themselves a part. Nevertheless, John with his
customary incisiveness wrote later, "Abbot Aelred Carlyle
and the Caldey Benedictines might have put off their sub
mission to the Catholic Church if Abbess Scholastica Ewart
had not helped to give them a good shove."

This meeting between the two friends was brief, however,
for in May 1913 John was off to Malta for a "wonderful ex
perience" at the Eucharistic Congress. In an attempt to live
up to his Franciscan ideals, he spent the night aboard the
steamer propped up against a pile of baggage on deck. He
mentioned that "the first-class saloon was full of American
priests and bishops. The Reverend Clergy walked about on
deck in all sorts of queer cloth caps some (American, of
course) in English clericals, with opera glasses hung over
their shoulders. One priest wore a gray suit."

From the Rockies to the Beda 63

Several pages of one of his letters were devoted to vivid
descriptions of Malta and the wonderful Catholic atmos
phere of the island, the whole of which "seemed to be given
up to God and his Grace." He marveled that half the in
habitants received Holy Communion daily, and that there
was no drunkenness and apparently no sexual immorality.

It is easy to understand how the Maltese ceremonial ap
pealed to John s eclectic and baroque taste. He mentioned the
brass and string orchestras in the west galleries of the larger
churches; the credence tables arranged with silver flagons
and plates just like the Communion table at Westminster
Abbey on royal occasions; except that here there were miters
in addition to twelve solid-silver statues.

Most of the altar frontals, tabernacles and candlesticks
were of solid beaten silver. The high altars all had a beautiful
hanging canopy or baldachin. Never had John seen such im
mense candles, very long and thick, soaring up, and all mi
raculously straight! He was fascinated by the surplices worn by
the priests, tight around the neck, with long, full sleeves
folded back over the wrists. Even more exciting was the
sight of all the canons of the cathedral at Citta Vecchia, and
also at the Co-Cathedral of St. John, Valetta, wearing white
miters at Mass. He could hardly believe his eyes when the
deacon and sub-deacon walked in with miters on their heads,
but he supposed they happened to be bishops.

He told Mr. Selby-Hall that whenever the Viaticum was
taken to the sick, whatever time of the day or night, the
church bells rang and the Sacred Host was borne solemnly
under a square canopy with a crowd of men and boys in
front carrying candles and lanterns, with numbers of men
and women following them. No matter where he went at any
period of his life, John showed unusual powers of observa
tion and a retentive memory for details. He reveled in every
manifestation of beauty, and had no narrow prejudices.

64 The Hermit of Cat Island

From the moment John had decided to enter the Beda he
began to dream of returning to the Bahamas as a Catholic
priest. When he wrote to Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of
New York, regarding this possibility, however, he was in
formed that since the missions in the Bahamas were served
by Benedictines of St. John s Abbey, Minnesota, there would
be no place for a secular priest in these islands. In June 1912
he wrote to Mr. Selby-Hall that a great weight had been taken
off his mind, saying: "God s will is now quite clear as regards
that course for me. Deo gratias. I am really very thankful. I
had such weighty misgivings that it would have been a mis
take to go back to the Bahamas. . . . Affection for the dear
people of my late flock made me desire to return to them,
but now I see that it is clearly not God s will. I know He
will provide all that is best for them, and He will bring them
or their children into His True Church in His own good
time there is no hurry with God."

John s next move was to write to the Bishop of Regina,
since he knew from experience how great was the need of
English-speaking priests in the west of Canada. He could
easily form a mental picture of himself engaged in rough
pioneer missionary work on the prairies of Saskatchewan,
but the Bishop showed no eagerness to accept this convert
Anglican clergyman for his diocese.

It was not until shortly before his ordination to the priest
hood that John discovered where his future apostolate would
be. One day Monsignor George, rector of the Beda College,
happened to meet Bishop Kelly of Geraldton, who talked to
him of the spiritual needs of his vast diocese in Western
Australia. On the next occasion when the rector came to join
the students at recreation in their common room he spoke
to them of this bishop. Turning to John, he said, "That
would be the Bishop for you, Hawes; it would be worth your
while to see him/

From the Rockies to the Beda 65

John replied, "But what about Canada? The Bishop of
Regina has not yet given me a definite answer."

Monsignor George answered: "I could straighten that out
later."

So the following day John called on Bishop Kelly, and
they went for a long walk together, and the student, now more
familiar with Rome than was the Australian prelate, piloted
him through the streets. He recorded that "to the multitude
of beggars that accosted him for an alms, the Bishop never re
fused one, but stopped and dived into his pockets and
courteously handed the coin to the beggar as to Christ. He
reminded me of the good bishop in Victor Hugo s Les Mise-
rableSj but how he could ever carry so many centesimi in his
pockets I don t know! And he even asked me to say a prayer
for him!

"That was the first of many daily long walks we had to
gether. How Bishop Kelly loved Australia and it was not
exactly the land of his birth because he had been born at sea.
His diocese, so he explained to me, was the biggest, poorest
and wildest on the southern continent. Well/ said the
Bishop, if you want real apostolic missionary work I can
offer you that, but not much more/ I replied that this sort
of thing would suit me perfectly. Then he spoke of the
cathedral he hoped to build in Geraldton. He wanted it
round, with the seats converging on the high altar. Next day
I brought along some sketches to show him. He was delighted,
and remarked: Why, you understand at once exactly what I
want, and when I consulted an architect at home, he drew
me out a plan of an oblong building with five domes/ "

John had received the first of the major orders, the sub-
diaconate, when he had returned to England for the summer
vacation, just before World War I broke out in August 1914.
Had he not been definitely bound, he would have volunteered
for service in any capacity, but he had to go back to Rome

66 The Hermit of Cat Island

and continue his studies. The rector excused him from doing
the full course of philosophy, remarking, "You won t need
much philosophy in the back blocks of Western Australia!"
On Ember Saturday, February 27, 1915, John was ordained
priest by the Cardinal Vicar in the Lateran Basilica. He wrote
to Mr. and Mrs. Selby-Hall: "Well, my dear friends, I am a
real priest at last. The service at St. John Lateran was most
beautiful. There were a great many to be ordained, so the
choir stalls were full. The Mass was sung unaccompanied, all
the clerics joining in with a thundering volume of sound,
when the organ played the grand old plain-chant tune for
the Veni Creator. When my hands were being anointed and
tied up, I felt I must weep, but I gulped down the sobs and
managed not to show tears. We were fourteen from the Betfa,
including those for minor orders. We were in church from
7:15 A,M. to 12:45 P.M. I had a racking headache all the after
noon, but felt quite happy I shall be very sorry to leave

dear holy old Rome, and to bid a last lingering good-by to
SL Peter s."

Once again the urge to go tramping reasserted itself, so
with another student the newly ordained priest set out from
Rome to Montefiascone. From here the pair walked on to
Bolsena and Orvieto, covering a distance of about fifty miles
in each direction. Most of the time the weather was wet and
stormy. A3 Father Hawes "waded nearly knee-deep through
little streams crossing roads, getting lost among the hills, and
following mule tracks," he must have recalled his first tramp
through England. In a letter to Selby-Hall he told of how
he and his companion sat around a huge open fireplace in a
great beamed room at Bolsena, surrounded by peasants. A
woman cooked a meal on the fire, and sheep dogs strolled
about the room. John never failed to notice dogs of any
breed. He was passionately devoted to them.
In this same letter he gave details of "a grand concert at

From the Rockies to the Beda 67

the Beda on the Saturday night after the ordinations, for
which Percy Gateley (another convert from the Anglican
ministry, and also a Benedictine novice at Caldey) concocted
one of his inimitable songs for the occasion, taking us all off.
His verse on me was:

Builds cathedrals at his ease,
Loves, although they harbor fleas:
Cats and aborigines:
Can you tell me who is he?

Shortly before John left Rome for England, the Reverend
Vincent Eyre turned up on a holiday pilgrimage to shrines
in Italy. "We visited Frascati, among other places/ Father
Hawes related. "On the feast of St. Aloysius Mr. Eyre ac
companied me early in the morning to that saint s church,
where I said Mass at a side altar and my dear old vicar knelt
with great devotion hearing my Mass. There was nothing
clerical about his costume, only a dark suit with a turn-down
collar. A day or two previously he was kneeling at his devo
tions in one of the smaller Roman churches, when the sac
ristan (struck by the priestly-looking face), and in spite of
the lay clothes, approached him, saying that an altar was all
ready for him if he would like to celebrate Mass. Mr. Eyre
smiled, shook his head, and waved him away. Until his death
he always longed to find himself in communion with the
Holy See, but he was never granted the gift of faith/

Before he said farewell to Rome, Father Hawes obtained
the necessary faculties from the Minister General of the
Friars Minor Capuchin to establish congregations of the
Franciscan Third Order in any parish of which he might
find himself in charge. Then he set out for England, where
he spent about three months with his parents.

On the feast of the Guardian Angels, October 2, 1915, he
embarked at Tilbury Docks on the long voyage to Australia.

5.

Gold-Fields Missionary [1915-1920]

IN 1915, when Father John Hawes first arrived in Australia,
the diocese of Geraldton of which he was to be a priest con
sisted of a vast territory of about 314,500 square miles set
squarely in the center of Western Australia. It had been
created in 1898, and by the time Father Hawes began his
work there it still boasted no more than twenty-eight churches
served by ten secular and four regular priests. The Irish
Presentation nuns had twenty-eight members divided among
six houses, while the Dominican Sisters from New Zealand,
who numbered twenty-four, conducted four convent schools
within the diocesan boundaries.

Bishop Kelly welcomed the new priest and turned over to
him the so-called "parish" of Mount Magnet, which included
the Yalgoo gold fields to the east of Geraldton. Father Hawes s
district was 160 miles long and almost as wide. Within the
parish lay four little towns, four churches (but only two pres
byteries), and two convents on the gold fields. The country
around Mount Magnet was given over to stock raising, with
"stations" or ranches at which Mass was celebrated four
times a year. Within Mount Magnet itself was a church
and presbytery, but Father Hawes gave up the latter to be
used as a convent for three Presentation nuns who came up

68

Gold-Fields Missionary 69

from Geraldton to open a badly needed Catholic
school.

At Yalgoo, seventy miles southwest of Mount Magnet, he
had another presbytery, which he described as "a very com
fortable little bungalow with a veranda all around, a sitting
room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom." Yalgoo church, so
he stated, was certainly the prettiest little building of cor
rugated iron he had ever seen, "white walls and red roof, with
a stately altar and spacious sanctuary, as long as the nave, even
an apse with leaded stained-glass windows." There were about
250 inhabitants, nearly all of them Catholics. Camels and
emus strolled along the street, and the camels emitted weird
groans. From Yalgoo a team of nine camels would drag an
enormous wagon, carrying about eight tons balks of timber,
and other equipment for the gold mines to places more than
fifty miles away.

In one of his first letters to Selby-Hall, Father Hawes ex
plained that it was far too hot to do anything but "flop about
struggling to exist, with a temperature of 110 in the shade
all the time." He had tried to write once but his hand stuck
to the paper and it was too much exertion! Mosquitoes kept
him awake most nights, but sometimes he managed to get
sleep by saturating his pillow with oil of citronella. "I have
hauled my bed out and slept under the stars," he wrote. "I
have said Mass daily at six, but after breakfast it gets too hot
to do anything but alternately drink out of the water bag and
lie down in the bath. I feel too exhausted even to start saying
my Office until after sunset. Of course it is possible to sit in a
draught between doors and windows, but the burning wind
dries you up! Then you see a willy-willy coming, and rush
to close the windows. A willy-willy* is a whirlwind of red
dust. You see a great pillar just like a waterspout sweeping
down through the bush or up the road. If it passes through a
house, everything is covered thick with a fine dust. These

70 The Hermit of Cat Island

moving pillars of dust are a familiar sight red against a
dear blue sky.

"But a willy-willy is nothing to a dust storm; in the latter
the wind blows like a hurricane, and you can do nothing. The
sky is darkened, verandas are torn off, and instead of the
ordinary flocks of little green parrots, or gray and red cocka
toos, the air is filled with hurtling sheets of corrugated iron,
kerosene tins and empty rain-water tanks, and the little cor
rugated-iron closets that adorn every back yard and decorate
vacant spaces in the gold-fields towns. If one of these archi
tectural gems, or an empty 5,000-gallon tank, happens to de
scend on your head, you might have the misfortune to be
consigned to the nearest hospital. If the local doctor is like
the dentist well! The one-and-only remedy the dentists
have here is to pull out all the teeth you ve got, so that you
can t suffer from toothache any more, and they do it at one
sitting. The Australian character is simple and straightfor
ward and likes thoroughgoing remedies!"

Even if he found the physical discomfort hard to endure, it
was clear enough that Father Hawes enjoyed writing about
his new and strange environment. He went on to describe the
two mining towns of Cue and Day Dawn, which lay about
fifty miles northeast of Mount Magnet. To reach them the
railroad had to cross a great "lake," sixty miles long. It usu
ally was filled with sand, salt and yellow clay, but once or
twice a year, after thunderstorms, it became a real lake, filled
with water.

"Cue is the end of the earth, and Day Dawn even more at
the back of beyond," he wrote. "My first day in Cue a man
said to me, Well, Father, I wonder how you ll like it? I re
member my first impressions of the place twenty-one years
ago. I d come straight out from Ireland, and when I got here
I thought this place was the abomination of desolation spoken
of by the prophet what s-his-name. I d have gone straight back

Gold-Fields Missionary 71

home to dear old Ireland if I could have, but I d nothing to
go with; but I like it all right now it s the people that
count."

At Cue, Father Hawes found a brick presbytery, a fairly
good church "of the Gothic variety," a Dominican convent,
and a large school. He describes the convent as "quite a pic
turesque place of tropical aspect, clothed entirely in Domini
can white: white walls in shade under the low-sweeping
veranda covered with creepers and flowers, little palms in
front and whitewashed roofs sparkling in the sunshine."

Day Dawn was very different. Here his "heart sank" as the
sun rose over the dreary, flat, treeless wilderness of baked red
clay, red ironstone rocks and dried-up patches of brown grass,
and over the "corrugated tabernacles" of the misnamed
"town." It consisted of the usual rows of "hotels" and
stores, with a town hall, fire station, and the Anglican and
Methodist chapels roped together with the same telephone
wire! Father Hawes noted that the Protestant churches gen
erally snuggled up close together in the gold-fields towns,
and were usually on the opposite side of the road from the
Catholic chapel. There was one train a day, and this had "shot
him out at Day Dawn at midnight." During the remaining
hours of darkness millions of mosquitoes buzzed merrily
around. They came from the town reservoir, which, as else
where in Western Australia, was called the dam.

The outstanding feature and pride of Day Dawn was the
Great Fingall Dump, said to be 200 feet high. Father Hawes
described it as "a mountain of powdered white quartz refuse
from the gold battery. But the Great Fingall has fallen on
evil days. It now employs only fifty men, where formerly 500
worked." He went on to say: "One great consolation is that
in the beastliest of places you will find some of the very nicest
and dearest people. I like going to Day Dawn now because
the Catholics there are so devout and so keen on their little

72 The Hermit of Cat Island

brick church, dedicated to St. Joseph. Their hospitality to a
priest is overwhelming."

It was both a surprise and a great consolation to the priest-
architect to find that all his four churches were well supplied
with good statues, fine Stations of the Cross, rich vestments
and valuable altar vessels. Each possessed a splendid mon
strance. The women kept the presbyteries or the sacristy
lodgings clean and tidy. The only exception was at Cue,
where nobody had even touched the presbytery since his
predecessor departed. Father Hawes wrote, "When I arrived
it was full of rubbish, dust, old papers, etc., so I turned to
myself in the sweltering heat and spent two days clearing the
place out. The movable furniture consisted mainly of empty
beer bottles. I carted them out to the end of the garden,
where small children came daily with little wheel carts to re
move them, and thereby made their fortunes (getting some
thing for the bottles at the hotels). The broken bottles left by
the children have been consumed by stray goats!"

The missionary realized that he would get accustomed to
almost anything. He began to grow quite fond of the wild,
desolate bush scenery. He saw new beauties and fascination in
everything. Then the first rain for nearly five months fell,
filling up the water tanks, freshening the feed of the stock
and cattle, and cooling the air. Father Hawes now felt that
there were far worse places in the world than Western Aus
tralia in which to live. He was finding his feet.

Yet he confessed that he found it impossible to work up any
interest in mining, minerals, reefs and gold nuggets, which
were the usual subjects of conversation among his scattered
flock. On the other hand, because of his love for animals,
Father Hawes got on well talking to the stockmen and pick
ing up bush lore from them. There were a fair number of
blacks about in the bush, "the queerest-looking people I ever
saw in my life," so he described them. Very few of the

Gold-Fields Missionary 73

aborigines in his parish were even nominal Christians, un
like those who had been converted by the Benedictine monks
of New Norcia. Most of the hotelkeepers were Catholics of

Australian Aborigine

Irish origin who would never accept a penny from a priest for
his board and lodging. Taken as a whole, Father Hawes found
the Catholic families very kind and hospitable, and soon
formed the highest opinion of them.

In several letters he wrote of their loyalty to the Church
and of their faithfulness in fulfilling their religious obliga
tions. He mentioned a Scotsman and his wife at Cue who
thought nothing of driving seventy miles from their cattle
station for confession, Mass and Holy Communion. There
was another man, Paddy Morrisy, often called "The Saint" or
"Priest Morrisy," who never missed a Sunday when the priest
came. He usually drove in fifteen to twenty miles with his

74 The Hermit of Cat Island

wife and children, but sometimes, when he failed to catch his
hoise in the bush, he walked the fifteen or more miles by
himself, rather than miss Mass.

This story is all the more remarkable, because Cue claimed
to be about the hottest place on the gold fields. There was a
saying that when its inhabitants reached hell they would send
back to Cue for their blankets!

Father Hawes, as has been related, had ceased to wear his
beloved brown Franciscan habit just before he left the
Bahamas in 1911. Since his arrival in Western Australia he
had adopted an equally picturesque costume a thin long
coat of pale brownish silk, white wide-brimmed hat, and pale
brown holland trousers. He explained in one letter that the
color had nothing to do with Franciscanism, but had been
chosen because of the dust. White clothes were impractical,
since it was not long before they were covered with dingy
red dust stains.

Many of his early letters show that he saw everything and
everybody with the eyes of an artist. Here is a typical para
graph: "Yesterday morning I went for a walk out a few miles
in the bush, and really enjoyed it, because the sun was com
pletely hidden under a sky of gray rolling clouds. It was like
dear old England (the sky, I mean). And the bush was full of
beautiful color, but there s no color in the artistic sense
when everything swelters all day long, scintillating under a
fierce, pitiless, cloudless glare low green scrub from six to
eight feet high, and a vast rolling waste without a tree."

On Sundays the priest visited the different towns in rota
tion, so that each had Mass every third Sunday and several
weekday Masses. The main part of the Sunday collections was
used to pay railroad fares. Father Hawes got an average of
thirty shillings every week, and also a very occasional Mass
stipend. Altar wine, candles and other necessities were paid
for by the altar societies in each town.

Gold-Fields Missionary 75

A good idea of the busy life of a mission priest in Western
Australia about forty years ago is given in the "program"
drawn up by Father Hawes after he had got to know his
enormous parish. This is how it reads:

First Sunday

Cue Confessions 6.30, Mass 7.30, motor to Day Dawn 8.15.
Day Dawn Confessions 9 and Mass 9. Short sermon at both
places. Catechism in the afternoon. Rosary, sermon and Bene
diction 6.30 P.M.

Monday Confessions 6.30, Mass 7, Rosary 7.30 P.M.
Tuesday Leave Day Dawn by 3 A.M. train, arrive Mount
Magnet 6 A.M. Confessions on arrival, Mass 7. During the week
visits to Catholic families in cattle and sheep stations. Mass at
Yowergalbie, Mumbinia, Edah, etc. Loan of horse to ride to
these stations.

Second Sunday

Ride on horseback to Soogardie (five miles) for Mass at
7.30 A.M. Back to Mount Magnet for Mass at 9.30, with sermon.
Catechism 3 P.M. Rosary, sermon and Benediction 7.30 P.M.
Spend three days visiting Catholic families, then by 6 A.M. train
(seventy miles) to Yalgoo, arriving there by middle of the week.

Third Sunday (an easy one!)

Confessions and Communion from 7 A.M. Mass and sermon at
9. Rosary, sermon and Benediction, 7.30 P.M.
Train back to Mount Magnet about the middle of the week,
and then on to Cue (120 miles), arriving there about midnight.
Then the round again as before, only with some different
stations. Several of these are mines fifty or more miles from the
railway. The men send a motorcar to fetch the priest.

One of the things that surprised Father Hawes was that he
had to eat plenty of meat in the very hot weather. He wrote:
"You get an awful sinking feeling in your middle if you don t

76 The Hermit of Cat Island

take food regularly." He got another surprise when the Aus
tralian climate in the month of May moved from its extreme
of heat to bitter winds morning and evening and brilliant
sunshine alternating with rain. Having been nearly roasted
alive, even in the shade, he never expected that he would
welcome a fire to sit beside in the evening.

It was a surprise to him, too, that the people looked so
healthy, and his Franciscan spirit reveled in the absence of
any class distinctions. He said in one of his earlier letters:
"The men are quiet but very sociable, and all is free and
easy, yet there are real good manners and a rough sort of
courtesy. When drunk, the men are usually quiet, and oddly
enough the drunker they are, the more silent they be
come!"

There were so many little things that amused him. The
local Methodist minister was clean-shaven, wore a Roman
collar, a "Trilby hat," and dressed entirely in black even in
the hottest weather. The Church of England clergyman at
Mount Magnet always wore a clean, stiff starched white suit
and a white helmet. Father Hawes formed the rather harsh
impression that most of the Anglican missionaries had little
to do beyond collecting their Christmas and Easter dues from
the Freemasons, but perhaps his observations were colored
by the antipathy which he had developed since his conversion
toward everything connected with Anglicanism. Somebody at
Mount Magnet had told him that on a Sunday the parson
often rang the bell and went into church where he read the
service alone. This certainly has an apocryphal ring! In one
of those earlier letters he judges that "where the Anglicans
cannot have attractive services with an organ and a good
choir (as in Geraldton), the C of E churches don t seem to
draw out 1 in these back places, but Catholics need none of
these things. I sometimes think how intensely dull our serv
ices are from the natural* point of view: no hymns, no music

Gold-Fields Missionary 77

unless perhaps what is worse than none at all, a couple of
devoted but earsplitting squalling prima donnas painfully
torturing the Kyries and the Gloria or the Tantum Ergo, to
some soulless operatic twiddling. But our people come to
pray, to offer sacrifice to God, and to be eased of their sins.
The supernatural is really evident."

Father Hawes thought it odd that, considering the abun
dance of beautiful wild flowers in Western Australia, most of
the little Catholic churches generally had their altars adorned
in a homely style with "large brilliant and varied concoctions
of paper and rag, springing out of assorted china vases be
tween the long, topply judases." This exhibition of chiefly
artificial flowers brought back to him the "delicious aroma of
Italy and the Eternal City. . . . Dear old paper flowers, you
waft me away in spirit, as I say Mass, from these torrid wastes
to those altars amid the soft blue mountains of Umbria and
Tuscany, to the time-worn sanctuaries of Assisi, Loreto, and
San Gemignano."

There was definitely no Teutonic stiffness in the churches.
Big, sturdy-looking lads of fifteen or sixteen were quite happy
to go on wearing the same garments they had worn when they
were eight, and first "on the altar," to use the favorite Irish
expression. Scarlet cassocks, shrunk to the length of an
episcopal mantelletta, showed brawny bare knees and stout
calves. The children were charmingly unsophisticated. Father
Hawes tells the story of a little boy of eight who had made his
first confession most thoroughly and intelligently. He asked
the boy:

"And there s nothing more, my child?"

"Please, Father, you ll come in to breakfast after Mass?
I m sure Mother would ask you to ..."

"Never mind about that now, we can think about that
after Mass. Say three Hail Marys for your penance, and make
a ..."

78 The Hermit of Cat Island

"And we still got those pictures you drewed us last
time . . ."

"Yes: now make a good act of contrition, while I give you
absolution."

It was remarkable how this convert Englishman got on with
his mainly Irish flock. How much he loved them is evident
from many of his letters. His first St. Patrick s Day at Yalgoo
was described in great detail. It started off with a full church
at seven-o clock Mass, with the altar a blaze of candles, fol
lowed by a lively hymn to St. Patrick. In spite of not having a
drop of Irish blood in his veins, so far as he knew, Father
Hawes proudly displayed all day an elegant harp of green
ribbon with a sprig of shamrock thereon, and a bit of sham
rock sewed into his coat. After a strenuous afternoon in grill
ing heat, the kindly Presentation nuns brought him a festal
meal scones and cakes and grapes, black and white, and a
watermelon with chunks of ice to keep it cool. The day ended
with a grand concert and public dance. Nineteen couples
came all the way from Mount Magnet, and danced all night,
returning home by the 6 A.M. train.

The Presentation nuns are often mentioned in Father
Hawes s letters, and described as "grand women/ All were
Irish "out from the old country." Their pastor added: "It s
a wonderful thing, refined and educated women, leaving
comfortable homes, and then giving up even the ordinary
spiritual consolations of the cloister to live out in these
dreary back-block places where they are often a fortnight
without Mass, but with the consolation of having Our Lord
in the tabernacle with them. They do a power of good, and
the Protestants recognize it, in that so many of them withdraw
their children from the state schools and send them to the
nearest convent school, knowing that not only is the standard
of secular education higher, with music, painting, dancing,

Gold-Fields Missionary 79

etc. taught, but that the children learn better manners at the
Catholic schools, including obedience and courtesy."

After a year or two Father Hawes made friends with all
sorts of curious characters, among whom was a former mayor
who had returned to the bush, where he cut sandalwood, sank
wells, and drank a lot but not water from his wells! The first
time they met the former mayor resembled a dirty laborer;
the following night he was a great swell in evening dress, act
ing as master of ceremonies at a charity dance. Another good
friend to the missionary priest and the nuns was Jim Bur-
goine, the publican at Boogardie a huge, burly fellow ever
so hearty and good-natured. He and the priest shared a com
mon love of horses. The two of them would sit around for
hours, drinking cold beer and talking of horses, but it was
not so easy to get Jim to Mass. If he did turn up, it was gen
erally after the priest had taken the ablutions or when he
was about to give the final blessing,

It was the publican of Boogardie who lent Father Hawes a
fine, big, powerful stock horse for his first long ride around
some of the outlying mines and sheep stations. On this trip
he covered more than 240 miles through the bush, and had
some hair-raising adventures. We can picture him with his
altar stone and vestments, a thin pajama suit, sponge bag,
razor, a breviary and missal, all done up in a roll of brown
canvas strapped in front of the saddle. A blanket was under
the saddle, a flask of water and a billycan on one side, and a
small bag with sundry things in it on the other. He would
take off his coat and Roman collar and tie them on top of the
canvas roll so they would be handy if needed, and ride in his
shirt sleeves and khaki trousers, with a white pith helmet
perched on his head.

Father Hawes rode through the lonely bush all the first
day, and it was not until nearly 9 P.M. that he found his way

80 The Hermit of Cat Island

to a house, where a kindly Irish family gave him a bed for the
night and a grand meal of hot tea, creamy milk, eggs, scones
and rich cake. The following day he had the misfortune to
lose the one absolutely essential item in his gear, the canvas
water bag, and consequently suffered from thirst. Once again
it was an Irishman and his wife who put him up for the night.
On Candlemas Day Father Hawes celebrated Mass at one of
his remote stations, where he blessed both holy water and
candles for a dozen faithful Catholics. He was rewarded by an
offering of five pounds, a welcome surprise.

After a Sunday at Yalgoo, Father Hawes set out again,
taking with him some flour, sugar and tea in his saddlebag,
and making a start by sunrise. He rode all day, except for a
halt between noon and four to escape the terrific heat. Sun
set found him at a lonely wild spot with a well, called the
Shadow of Death, forty-one miles from Yalgoo. There had
been a cattle station there once, but now he saw nothing but
the ruins of roofless buildings, composed of sun-dried bricks.
The ruins lay in a valley filled with eucalyptus trees whose
boughs were dry and withered. A tall erection within some
broken fencing looked like a gallows but had probably been
a hoist for branding cattle, for the Shadow of Death had once
been quite a big station.

Father Hawes writes: "I had to work hard hauling up a
windlass to bring the water bucket up from the well a
heavy iron bucket. The well was about sixty feet deep, with
horrid brackish water. My horse had a drink and I filled my
water bag, after which I mad up to a little hill behind the
ruined houses. Here I unsaddled the horse and turned him
loose with hobbles on his forelegs and a large brass bell
round his neck. Then I gathered some sticks, any amount of
dry withered branches lying around, and in a few minutes I
had a blazing fire. I mixed up some flour and water on a bit
of newspaper, and made a Johnny Cake or Damper, as they

Gold-Fields Missionary 81

call it here a flat cake of bread which I laid on the embers
and raked more ashes over it, and boiled my billy for tea. It
tasted very salty from the water of the Shadow well.

"It was quite dark by then, and a clear starlight sky over
my head. I said the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary instead of
the Breviary, and then curled up in a blanket and lay down
near the fire. ... In the morning at dawn I made tea and
finished last night s Damper. 7 Then I went to look for the
horse, heard his bell tinkling not very far off, down by the
well. So I made my way there with my sponge bag, wound up
a bucket of water, and had a refreshing bath didn t trouble
about a towel, but got wet into my shirt and trousers, which
soon dried."

Among the many people Father Hawes met on this long,
adventurous ride was at least one Protestant family, who mis
took him for a policeman because of his big horse, khaki
clothes and white helmet. Once they were told that he was a
priest they could not do enough for him, saying that they had
never been visited by their own Church of England clergy
man. When he left them he rode on across great, flat plains
and across the beds of dried-up lakes, where big kangaroos
bounded about among scrubby bushes. He passed mining
works with their skeleton towers, and many abandoned build
ings, their iron roofs stripped off and hanging, flapping in the
wind, like torn brown paper. On and on, mile after mile,
until he reached a lonely whitewashed iron house, which
turned out to be a hotel, run by two Irish Catholic brothers,
each with his own family, and an old grandmother, only a
year out from Ireland. Needless to say they welcomed the
priest with open arms. As Mrs. Harvey, the grandmother,
prepared supper she said, "Oh, Father, this is a wild, lone
place, a wild, bad place, and they don t think of God at all,
at all, but all their thoughts is down under the ground after
the gold. God bless and save your Reverence."

82 The Hermit of Cat Island

"Poor old thing," commented Father Hawes, "after going
daily to Mass all her life, no wonder she found Western
Australia a godless country/ " She said to him: "I pray the
Lord He ll just spare me to get back to the old country, so
that I may not die in this terrible place and be buried over
the hill yonder. Oh, Father, I couldn t rest there!"

Still, it was an intense joy for the poor old lady to be able
to assist at Mass the following morning, when quite a large
congregation assembled, most of whom made their confes
sions and went to Communion.

After another long ride in intense heat, passing Lake
Monger glistening silver-white in the sun from the salt caked
on the surface of its dry bottom, the missionary landed at a
mining camp. Here the men were most friendly, and Father
Hawes admits that it was not easy for him to refuse the rounds
of drinks pressed on him that first evening. There were more
mining settlements to be visited, so he changed over from his
horse to a shaky old motorcar with a trailer, which he found
much more uncomfortable, and which nearly bumped him to
bits.

Here was a different hilly sort of landscape, a welcome
change from the deadly monotony of the flat plains. The far
distances took on a wonderful blue, so that Father Hawes
could fancy to himself that the rolling country was the sea,
and almost began to look out for white sails. The journey was
worth while because he discovered fifteen Catholics, some of
them Italians, who told him that this was the first visit paid
by any minister of religion since they had arrived there eight
een months before.

Another drive in the ramshackle automobile took him to a
hotel at Payne s Field, where the following morning enough
Catholics had been "roped in" to make it worth while to
celebrate Mass in the hotel eating room. Father Hawes
recorded that "the tables were cleared out, except one that

Gold-Fields Missionary 83

stood against the east wall, under a large colored almanac
print of a rosy-faced girl fondling a Newfoundland dog. I
could not help feeling that it lacked the devotional tone of a
Raphael or a Fra Angelico, so I moved the table to the middle
of the side wall where there was nothing but whitewash (and
flies) above the crucifix. My congregation was entirely of the
sterner sex, but at the Offertory I became aware of a flowered
hat stealing in, which knelt down quietly in a far corner it
was the Irish kitchenmaid with red hair whom I had over
heard remark the evening before that she had done with all
that sort of thing* since she came to this hotel! There were no
Communions at Payne s Field. For most of the men it was
grace enough to get them to Mass- it would have been too
much to expect this tough crowd to go to confession and
Communion. At the ablutions I gave a five-minute sermon,
as simple as I could make it, just on holding on to the Faith
in these back blocks, and the duty of remembering that they
were Catholics and the only witnesses of God out here. I said
that man was something more than a brute beast, and begged
the men to remember what they d learned long ago at their
mothers knees, and how in the past they had often sung
Taith of Our Fathers ; they must try to keep this Faith alive
here, if nothing else. An offering of a couple of pound notes
was presented with many apologies that it was not more.
Tou ve come at a bad time, Father, if you d come a fortnight
later, when the government crushings is on, we might have
given you far more/

"The red-haired girl got me tea and toast, and all the rest
of the morning till dinner I heard her humming, singing and
whistling Taith of Our Fathers over her pots and pans. Per
haps my .sermon had done some good? Beer and greyhounds
seemed to be the only Sunday occupation for the rest of the
inhabitants that Sunday."

After riding four more days, camping out in the bush on

84 The Hermit of Cat Island

two nights, and suffering from hunger and especially from
thim because his water bag had sprung a leak and none of the
water in the few wells was drinkable, Father Hawes finally got
back to Mount Magnet. He realized that the only way to keep
in touch with his widely-scattered families was to buy a horse,
so that he could make more of the apostolic journeys when
ever he could spare the time. He had saved twelve pounds
given him by the bishop the previous Christmas, and re
turned from this first long ride with thirteen pounds in his
pocket. Jim Burgoine promised to look out for a good horse,
and not long after this Father Hawes took his savings and
bought the animal Jim selected.

He was amused to hear that his first tour of the distant
stations had provoked much heart-burning and criticism in
the Anglican fold. Some of the Church of England "squat
ters" were reported to have said, "Here s the Roman Catholic
priest not been here two months yet, and he s got out to
these back-block places, and our clergyman has been here
two years and never visited us yet." The result of such grum
blings was that the local parson paid a visit to one of the fairly
distant stations, a fortnight after his Catholic opposite num
ber had been there. This clergyman asked his congregation to
present him with a motor bike, but they said times were too
bad for such expense, and told him to make do with his horse
and trap.

One of the results of Father Hawes s bush tour was a re
curring worry kbout the many lonely Catholics of whose ex
istence he heard from time to time. He often wished that he
had several curates to help him, but this was a hopeless dream.
On the whole, Father Hawes seemed happy enough, but very
often he complained of the lack of peace and solitude. Was it
that he had begun to feel already that his true vocation was
that of a hermit?

Gold-Fields Missionary 85

In one of his letters he mentions that he longed for peace
to say his Office and prepare his sermon, but little girls from
the adjacent convent school came into the sacristy to practice
on the piano, while a nun played the Tantum Ergo on the
harmonium in the church! He would shut his door and win
dow, only to be suffocated by the heat. Then he would take
his chair out onto the shady veranda, but he was still dis
tracted by the mixture of music. He would open his Breviary
only to have the flies crawl over his face and hands. If he
moved his chair to a place where he was in the path of a breeze
blowing round the church, flap, flap, flap went the leaves of
the Office book. The flies, borne on the wind, came back to
torment him, adding their buzzing to the droning harmony of
piano and harmonium. Then, driven to desperation back into
the stifling room, but the music and the heat proved too much
with the door shut, so out into the open air again. Where was
he now Terce or None? He just couldn t remember where
he had got to with the Word of God.

"The tum-tum-tum-diddle-diddle ending of that waltz was
repeated for the twentieth time," the priest wrote. "I cursed
little Phyllis O Brien God bless the child! If my guardian
angel finds two of my Little Hours are missing, he must blame
Phyllis. Here goes for Vespers. Oh, drat those flies! No
sermon begun. Return from supper at the hotel, and hur
riedly hash up my Yalgoo sermon on charity and forgiveness
of enemies especially Phyllis O Brien, as she is a dear child."

Throughout his life John Hawes had always loved taking
long walks. One of his greatest deprivations in Western Aus
tralia was that there was nowhere to go for a walk, and no
where to sit and admire a distant view. He mentioned this
in several letters, but remarked in one of them: "Don t think
I m really complaining. I think the relation of our petty an
noyance and inconveniences is a source of amusement, and

86 The Hermit of Cat Island

the very relation of them makes one see how trivial they
really are, and how absurd one is to fume and fret all the
time over such trifles. Laugh at them and they are nothing."

If only he had kept a diary during those first five years in
Western Australia! All we know from the scanty material
available is that Father Hawes lived his busy life from day to
day, brushing aside trivial irritations and discomforts, en
during hardship and privations which would have been too
much for many priests. His people were generous and he
never suffered from poverty no matter what he had to put
up with in other ways. He loved his apostolic work, nor was
there a dearth of artistic endeavor in this desolate country.

Bishop Kelly, having discovered that his English missionary
was a brilliant architect as well as a devoted apostle, put him
to work designing one church after another. These churches,
which are his lasting memorial in Australia, will be described
later, but needless to say Father Hawes, who loved "making
things," put his loving care not only into the designs but into
the practical building operations as well.

These first years in most respects were a fruitful period.
They were also, from a physical standpoint, heavily taxing,
and in 1920 Bishop Kelly told Father Hawes that he had
earned a holiday. It was decided that the missionary should
pay a visit to England, so with a light heart he began to make
plans for the long journey.

6.

Bush Architect [1920-193?]

Ax the thought of the journey ahead and at the feet that
money was so readily available for it, Father Hawes began to
have misgivings about his lack of Franciscan fervor which
seemed almost to have dried up in the torrid heat of the
Yalgoo gold fields. "What had become of my Franciscan
ideals?" he wrote in his memoirs. "A medal of Our Lady of
Mount Carmel carried in the pocket had long been substi
tuted for her scapular, but the Franciscan tertiary cord and
scapular were too much bother to wear when you lived most
of the day in your shirt sleeves!" Nevertheless, the Little
Poor Man had not forgotten his disciple and eventually was
to recall him to his primitive ideals.

As a matter of fact, he began to put them into practice as
soon as he set off across the Pacific. The only passage he was
able to get was on a troopship which, after a call at a New
Zealand port, sailed for Panama where Father Hawes was
transferred to a trading schooner on which he slept on deck,
his pillow a coil of rope. The schooner landed him at Port
Lim6n in Costa Rica and there he spent three days absorbed
in plans for a new sanctuary, transepts and a side altar for the
local Catholic church. Then he boarded a "banana boat"
bound for Havana from where, after feasting on the beauties

87

88 The Hermit of Cat Island

of the many baroque and rococo churches in Cuba, he went
to Matanzas and thence to Nassau, once more aboard a
schooner.

The Bahamas, as Father Hawes knew, from his previous
work there, had been Protestant in religion since their settle
ment by England in the seventeenth century. There is no
evidence of their being visited by a Catholic priest before
1845, and it was not until 1885 that the cornerstone of the
first Catholic church in the Bahamas was laid and the first
resident priest appointed. At that time the- islands formed a
remote part of the archdiocese of New York and, in 1891 at
the request of Archbishop Corrigan, the Benedictines of St.
John s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, sent two monk-mis
sionaries, one of them Father Chrysostom Schreiner, to Nas
sau. When these Benedictines took over the mission they
found only about fifty practicing Catholics, children in
cluded. Father Chrysostom, having been almost miraculously
saved from death when he and another priest were caught
aboard their schooner between Cat Island and Conception Is
land during a terrible hurricane, made a vow that he would
remain in the Bahamas as a missionary for the rest of his
days.

From this time the advance of the Church in the islands
was rapid. 1 As more and more churches were built and many
natives were converted, the need for more priests became
acute. When Father Hawes arrived, Father Chrysostom and
the few monks who were working with him begged the mis
sionary to stay and take up his labors in the Bahamas. Father
Chrysostom begged him to take over San Salvador, that is,
Wading Island, where Columbus had first landed in the
New World, and there design and help build a church as a
memorial to Columbus which the Knights of Columbus in

< CoUe S eville Minnesota,

Bush Architect 89

the United States had promised to finance. Although his
earlier attachment to the Bahamas still persisted, Father
Hawes regretfully explained that his Australian commitment
would prevent him from contemplating any such thing, but
he was careful to add that he hoped that things would work
out so that he might return later.

Leaving them with this vague reassurance, he went on to
New York to be the guest of the Collegeville Benedictines
at St. Anselm s Monastery in the Bronx, where Father Ber
nard Kevenhoerster was the prior. Father Hawes took ad
vantage of his stay to travel up to Peekskill to renew his
friendship with Mother Rosina, now called Sister Mary
Magdalene, and with Sister Mary Claudia, another of his
former disciples. At last he began the final lap of his journey
and landed in England, where he spent six months with his
parents in Surrey.

One evening he was invited to supper at the convent of
the Daughters of the Cross at nearby Carshalton, to meet
with Bishop Amigo of Southwark and Abbot Bergh, O.S.B.,
of Ramsgate. The former recalled how, as a young priest,
he was in charge of a parish in Texas, so big that it took the
mail-train express three hours to cross it. "Well, my Lord,"
replied Father Hawes, "I can board the mail train at six
o clock in the morning at the northeast end of my parish,
travel in it the whole day, and alight at the last little town
ship in the southwest corner at 9 P.M. My parish covers
42,000 square miles, but of course most of it is inhabited only
by kangaroos and emus. The Diocese of Geraldton covers
roughly 300,000 square miles, but in the more remote parts
some of the aborigines are still so wild as to be ready to spear
a stranger and cook him for dinner!"

Father Hawes had hoped to meet Abbot Aelred Carlyle
before returning to Australia, but was told that he had gone
off to South America in a last desperate attempt to raise

90 The Hermit of Cat Island

money to pay the debts pf his community* But before his
holiday was over and he had to return to Geraldton, Father
Hawes did manage to visit Father Rope, who was then in
charge of a remote parish on the border of Wales.

Toward the end of 1920 Father Hawes returned to Western
Australia, and shortly afterward Bishop Kelly died, a sad
loss to the missionary who had been devoted to the Bishop.
Then Archbishop Clune approached the priest-architect to
prepare plans for a new cathedral at Perth. Father Hawes
put much work into the designs, but eventually the scheme
fell through, so he was left free to devote himself uninter
ruptedly to the building of a church at Mullewa, a small
town on the railroad, about fifty miles inland from Gerald-
ton.

He records: "Day after day, toiling with sore and cracked
hands, tormented with flies and the scorching summer sun,
and clothed in lime-covered rags, all my interests are now
concentrated on this my latest church. Some of the piers and
walls are now ten feet above ground. God only knows how
I ve toiled and sweated over it, all through the sweltering
days of summer. Often I have worked alone; mixing the
mortar, fetching my stones, often aching with lumbago and
hardly able to lift a stone without groaning. Often I ve had
to knock off and go indoors to lie down on my bed for a
quarter of an hour and then drag myself out to work again
to face the sun and the flies. But once I get going the en
thusiasm and intoxication of the work carry me on. I be
come too tired out to eat anything except with a great effort.
People remark that I am growing thin.

"Thanks be to God, I never realized when I began (al
though even then I knew I was a fool to start on it) what I
was undertaking, or the magnitude and complications of the
task, otherwise I would never have had the courage to face
it. Not to speak of the financial anxiety and business worries,

Bush Architect 91

or the stirring up of people to work on the quarry and carting
stones and sand. There has also been the selfish apathy and
indifference of so many Catholics. However, it s a reward to
contemplate some portion of a wall a little higher every day.

"It s a great and noble labor, this piling of one stone upon
another, semi-sacramental, one of the four primal occupa
tions of man that of the mason, the carpenter, the plowman,
the fisherman. As a laborer I think of all those who have
been at it long before: the Egyptians, the Greeks, the
Romans, the Saxons, the Normans, and those giants of the
thirteenth century. It s strange to think that when the Saxons
were building their little Roman churches, England was all
bush then, like Australia*"

Father Hawes felt he was getting back again to his Fran
ciscan ideals. Labor gave him a real friendship with the work-
ingman. He was earning his daily bread; not only by his
spiritual labor in his parish, but by the labor of his own
hands. Moreover, each day was consecrated for him by begin
ning it, standing at the altar to offer the Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass.

After the church at Mullewa was completed, visitors often
annoyed the priest-architect. They gaped at him, saying:
"And did you really build all that yourself, Father? Well, you
will have a memorial behind you. You must feel a very
proud man doesn t it distract you when you re saying Mass
to look around and think you raised all that?"

But Father Hawes felt very differently and, to quote his
own words, "I thought to myself, God knows there s enough
pride in my poor fallen sin-stained soul pride and self-
seeking in all I do. Yet as to pride of that sort over the fin
ished building, I don t think I ever had it. Our Lady s church
at Mullewa has always seemed to have an impersonal relation
ship to myself. Not as though I had designed it, because I
prayed to St. Joseph every morning and commended the work

92 The Hermit of Cat Island

to him. I was just his laborer. I always said that beautiful
prayer of Pius X to St. Joseph. You can see his statue in the
church now, with a ten-foot rule in his hand.

"I was continually altering the design and changing things
as I went along. The building of it was a great adventure and
a sort of pilgrimage: it was not something made but a thing
that had grown. All I did was to discover it. And so, when at
long last I stood before the high altar under the dome, it
never occurred to me that I myself had built it those rough,
uneven gray walls but that I seemed to be standing in some
old church built by other hands in former times," 2

From 1923 to 1926 Father Hawes s very infrequent letters
to Mr. Selby-Hall were mainly concerned with the trials
he had to endure very good for his soul, no doubt from
the presence of a new bishop, whose views on art and arch
itecture were very different from those of his predecessor.
To be honest, it is not in the least surprising that Bishop
Ryan, who came from a wealthy suburban parish of Mel
bourne, felt that this Englishman was a dangerous eccentric,
if not quite mad. The astonishing little church at Mullewa,
the like of which Bishop Ryan had never seen in his life, was
enough to confirm his worst suspicions. No sane man could
have designed such a fantastic building, only a lunatic!

It was an even worse blow to Father Hawes that Bishop
Ryan maintained that everything was wrong with the new
cathedral at Geraldton, which was still unfinished, and in
which he took great pride, because he had managed to carry
out in stone the dreams of the late Bishop Kelly. The new
ordinary denounced the cathedral s peculiarities, as well as
those of the new churches at Mullewa and Yalgoo.

"Artl" he exclaimed one day. "It s just wasted on these
people. What do they understand of it?" Father Hawes wrote

2 For a detailed description of this church, which sums up all its architect s
eclectic ideals and proves his unique knowledge of historic styles, see p. 222 ff.

Bush Architect 93

in one letter about this date: "I fear my good Bishop thinks
I m a cracked idiot wasting my time, and that I would be far
better employed in book study or preparing sermons. But
he is very generous and gives away his money everywhere to
this or that object of charity."

However, there were some consolations. The Sisters at Yal-
goo reported that two old bushmen came to have a look at
the convent chapel, and that they were quite enraptured over
it, saying they d never seen anything like it, or so pretty, since
they left "the old country/ and that it reminded them of
the chapels at home. This cheering news delighted the priest-
architect. He felt that, after all, his new Bishop might not
be infallible in matters of art!

Alas! It was not only Father Hawes s architecture that an
noyed Bishop Ryan, but also his liturgical peculiarities. For
instance, what did he mean by having the Asperges before the
Missa Cantata on Sunday mornings? No other priest in the
diocese did so. The Bishop went so far as to maintain that
the Asperges was a complete novelty in Australia. He said
that he had never heard of it, except in cathedrals, and he lost
no time in abolishing it at Geraldton. Father Hawes pleaded
that the rite was quite common in most village churches on
the continent of Europe, even in Catholic churches in Eng
land, but this did not convince Bishop Ryan. He then fell
back on the argument that "the Asperges only lengthens the
service." He could say nothing when the parish priest of Mul-
lewa pointed out that it took only two minutes, and that
even with the reading of long notices and a sermon his Mass
was over in less than fifty minutes. But after a moment the
Bishop remarked: "That s much too quick; you ought to
preach a longer sermon."

In Geraldton Cathedral, where before Bishop Ryan s ad
vent plain chant had been the rule, the music was changed
to something not exactly liturgical. Father Hawes wrote:

94 The Hermit of Cat Island

"The ladies can now warble to their hearts* content Con-
coni and other such operatic Mass murderers. They never
get further with the Credo than down to the Incarnatus. The
so-called High Mass* is now a Low Mass missa bassa con
musica" In his own churches the choirs sang the Missa de
Angelis, but it had been a hard struggle to get them to learn
it

What with one thing and another he wa$ getting plenty
of hard knocks, but he could write, "However, it is all so
good for one s soul. God is breaking me up to teach me
greater detachment, I remember reading Tauler and his
similitude of the dog shaking the bone or rag, making a play
thing of it.

"As to my cathedral at Geraldton, I feel more or less re
signed now to the idea of having nothing more to do with it.
I never go down there now, nor do I feel I want to see it any
more; yet it used to mean so much to me. It still does, I sup
pose, but this is probably not detachment or resignation,
merely chagrin and wounded artistic pride, Perth may have
to go, too, because the majority of the clergy don t want and
certainly don t understand my design. Twice I have asked
the Archbishop to relieve me of it and obtain the services
of an architect more acceptable to the vox populi, but he is
very kind and says, No, I want you to do it "

Once again it was the simple people those supposed to
have no artistic taste who never ceased to praise the
churches designed and largely built by this priest-architect.
He tells the story of how one of the men who had helped
to build the church at Mullewa brought a pal to have a look
at it "I sez to im, come an ave a look at Father s church.
It don t look much from the road, but just come an* see ow
thick the walls are-^ain t that bonza now? From out there
you d think it was jus an ordinary buildin ... but this ere s
different from any other church." It was these unsophisti-

Busk Architect 95

cated folk who agreed with Eric Gill that "Art is skill," that
"beauty is a quality of things," and that "the artist is simply
the responsible workman.* 3

Bishop Ryan remained at Geraldton only from 1923 to
1926. In March of the latter year he was transferred to the
diocese of Sale in Victoria, not sorry to get away from West
ern Australia where he never felt at home. Despite their
frequent differences of opinion on art and architecture,
Father Hawes was the first to admit that Dr. Ryan was "a
good bishop/ and, above all, "a splendid missioner." The
following three years the Archbishop of Perth acted as Ad
ministrator Apostolic of the Geraldton diocese. Then, in
1930, the Reverend James Patrick O Collins was appointed
to the see. He soon became a loyal and devoted father and
friend to Father Hawes. The relationship between the two
men was most happy.

One day in April 1929 Father Hawes received from Sister
Mary Magdalene an American newspaper containing an ac
count of the erection of the Bahamas as a prefecture apostolic,
and that Father Bernard Kevenhoerster, O.S.B., had been
recommended by Cardinal Hayes as first Prefect Apostolic, al
though it was not until November 1933 that Monsignor Ber
nard was consecrated bishop in St. Patrick s Cathedral, New
York City. This reminder of the scene of his labors as an
Anglo-Catholic Franciscan missionary inspired Father Hawes
to write to Monsignor Bernard, asking if he would accept
him for work in the islands subject to his obtaining a release
from his own bishop. Monsignor Bernard replied that he
would be delighted to welcome this Australian missionary to
his poverty-stricken prefecture where more priests were badly
needed. He explained that there were promising openings
for fresh work, and that the people were most responsive.
The fact that Father Hawes knew the Bahamas already, and

3 Cf. Sacred and Secular (1940), p. 82.

% The Hermit of Cat Island

was remembered by so many people, as well as the fact that
he was a convert from Anglo-Catholicism, would have a great
influence.

Shortly after this Bishop O Collins came to Mullewa,
where Father Hawes laid the whole matter before him. He
told his ordinary that he had begun to feel that his apostolate
in Western Australia was finished, now that the church and
presbytery at Mullewa were completed. "I had built the house
for my successors," he wrote in his memoirs. "It was far too
comfortable and un-Franciscan for me. I had grown very
unsettled." The upshot of this interview was that Father
Hawes agreed to remain until there were a few more priests.
The Bishop said that he could not be spared at the moment,
and he wrote to Monsignor Bernard pointing out the diffi
culties in the diocese of Geraldton, above all the scarcity of
priests.

There were a number of reasons for Father Hawes s state
of unsettlement. Most of his people were of Irish extraction,
and rejoiced to find that their priest shared their own love
of horses. For some years Father had owned a splendid mare.
From a race horse he had bred a fine filly, and from her a
good colt. He also bred fox terriers, and got the name of
being an authority on all dogs and their ailments. As for
the horses, Father Hawes was not content with using them
for apostolic work. He trained some of them for the track,
rode them himself in races, and once won the Geraldton Cup!
The men of his flock used to say that a grand jockey had been
lost in him.

His ecclesiastical superiors do not seem to have objected
to the priest becoming an amateur jockey. Both Bishop Kelly
and Bishop O Collins attended the races and applauded his
successes. As to the people they just went mad when the
priest s horse came in first. At Yalgoo, on Sundays, a "bookie"
took up the collection at Mass in the prize silver cup that

Bush Architect 97

Father Hawes had won at a racel But to quote his own words:
"Almighty God was waiting for something more from me.
I had become far too wrapped up in horses and riding and
races I a priest and a Franciscan tertiary/*

So his conscience pricked him again and again, but he was
kept much too busy with architectural work to have time to
wonder about the near or distant future. During the brief
period that Bishop Ryan had ruled over the Geraldton dio
cese, the priest-architect thought he had done with his T
square and drawing board forever, but Bishop O Collins took
a different view; insisting that Father Hawes design more
and more churches, convents, and other buildings. The su
pervision of buildings in process of erection entailed not only
extra journeys, but also the worry of endless correspondence.
It is hardly surprising that Father Hawes s letters to friends
at home grew more and more infrequent. He was happy
enough designing and working out plans, and seemed to
thrive on this work, although he often sat up at his drawing
board half the night. With his parochial duties, riding, the
breeding of dogs, and architectural work, he was burning the
candle at both ends. One day his doctor remarked: "I don t
like the look of you; if you don t stop all this and get right
away you ll have a bad nervous breakdown."

The architectural work began to interfere with his priestly
duties. Father Hawes wrote. "Niceties of design and problems
of building construction obtruded themselves into all my
prayers and attempted meditations. I had quite forgotten
that the Art which was now again my first thought and ab
sorbing preoccupation was the idol from which Our Lord
had called me as a young man to go forth and serve Him in
some other way. For instance, I would suddenly wake up to
the fact that I had run on continuously through the psalms of
three nocturnes of Matins and on to the end of Lauds with
out having read the lessons and canticles, while I was men-

98 The Hermit of Cat Island

tally revolving the arching over of some space, or the con-
struction of a roof truss."

In 1933 his doctor and his bishop persuaded him to make
a trip to England for a much-needed rest. Once he arrived
in Europe he felt he must do a three weeks tour of Spain to
study the architecture of that country, and he continued to
mull over the same sort of architectural details that had oc
cupied him in Australia. In a long letter written from the
Hotel de Inglaterra, Seville, on June 6, 1933, illustrated with
many sketches, plans and sections of churches, he wrote that
"Milan is still the Queen of Cathedrals and Seville is grand
and immense." Yet he had been convinced that "the Spanish
architects have executed in most marvelous masonry what
the Italians (would have liked to do but) only did in scenic
painting/

What thrilled him above all else was the sight of the choir
boys at Seville, dressed as pages, dancing in the sanctuary
before the Blessed Sacrament exposed. He described how the
Cardinal Archbishop came in after Lauds, vested in mdgnif-
icent state, and sat on his throne at the west end of the coro
where he blessed the incense. Never in his wildest dreams
had Father Hawes imagined such splendid ceremonial. There
was a "full orchestra and sublime music/ also "a tremendous
lot of going up and down all the time between the coro and
sanctuary. When a canon goes to preach he is escorted to the
pulpit by a mace bearer, half-a-dozen choir boys, and three
minor canons. The latter wear black capes and soutanes with
red-edged buttonsthe canons are all in purple. The thurifer
and acolytes wear apparelled albs and amices and dalmatics.
The ladies go in for very pretty high combs in the back of
their hair, and black lace mantillas over them. At dinner in
the hotel there were some ladies in full dress with sort of
crinolines. One was bright green, another pink with three
white flounces,"

Bush Architect 99

He mentioned that he had been in Burgos, Toledo, Se
govia, Cordova, Granada, and Barcelona as well as Seville.
Wherever he went his observant eyes noticed and his memory
retained details of architecture or religious ceremonial. Never
had he seen "such glorious sanctuaries, with huge Gothic
retables soaring right up into the vault." He could hardly
find words in which to do full justice to the sanctuary at
Toledo, with "its apse, carved retable, and two glorious rood
screens with the two thieves." But Seville had "the noblest
altar and steps, and the most gorgeous gilded bronze screen
you ever sawl" This tour of Spain had a lasting effect on
Father Hawes s architectural designs. After 1933 his affection
for baroque became far more pronounced, and it came out
especially in the altar furnishings he planned for his churches.

Then followed a tour of Ireland, where Father Hawes made
a careful study of primitive Celtic architecture. What in
terested him most was the stone barrel-vaulted roof of Cor-
mac s Chapel at Cashel. He even felt it worth his while to
investigate some of the ancient monastic cells on the coast
of Kerry. Their beehive shape and domed stone roofs in
horizontal courses fascinated him. In years to come he would
make good use of his knowledge of early Christian buildings
in Ireland.

Father Hawes admits that by the time he had concluded
his English visit and returned to Australia he had lost all
further desire to go back to the Bahamas. To quote his own
words: "I was getting old, and I felt I would not be much
use now as a missionary. I dreaded the thought of the almost-
continuous heat, the mosquitoes and the coarse, repugnant
food, such as hominy. I tried hard to excuse myself, but all
the same I knew quite well in my inner consciousness that
God had called me. Never before had Western Australia
seemed such a fair and lovely land to me. There was no nicer
place under the sun than the Geraldton diocese. I had no

100 The Hermit of Cat Island

more desire to travel or to see new sights; no dear relatives or
kind friends. I felt I had no further ties with the old coun-
try."

Other things helped to encourage him to remain on the
southern continent. Bishop O Collins was so kind and consid
erate; always ready to discuss, understand and appreciate
questions of art, archaeology and liturgy. Moreover, the
Bishop and Father Hawes had other interests in common
above all, a love for dogs and horses. Finally, the diocese of
Geraldton had been "put on the map." Hitherto it had been
the despised Cinderella the most forlorn diocese in the
whole of Australia. Visitors now came from Europe and
North America. There was always something to show them
including all the churches and institutions designed by the
famous priest-architect. They departed interested and im
pressed with the signs of progress. Father Hawes enjoyed all
the bouquets and the limelight; realizing that he had helped
in no small way to bring about this change. By 1934 he could
regard himself as a "star!" He had achieved a name for him
self. No longer was he despised as an eccentric convert clergy
man. In fact, he had become one of the most important ec
clesiastics on the continent, of whom everybody had heard,
and who was constantly praised. He was definitely of "news
value," not only as a priest-architect, but as a priest-jockey!
Plenty of money rolled in, and he had quite forgotten what
it meant to be poor. So he built a cottage in a lovely spot
outside Geraldton, with the idea of retiring there to end
his days as chaplain to the nearby Hospital of St. John of
God. At the same time as he designed the Church of Santo
Spirito he chose the place for his own grave at the foot of
the rood screen, and even went so far as to have a memorial
brass made, with his effigy clothed in vestments, and set into
a marble slab. Meanwhile, the brass was hidden by a carpet.
Yet he admits that he could not cheat his conscience even
over this grave. He knew that he could never reside for long

Bush Architect 101

in this luxurious so-called "Hermitage," nor would his body
ever lie under the pavement in the Church of Santo Spirito.

Eventually the "Hermitage" became the residence of
Father Hawes s closest friend in Australia, Father James Pren-
dergast, after the latter was appointed chaplain to the hos
pital. Father Hawes retained a room for his own use, and
whenever business or pleasure called him to Geraldton, he oc
cupied it. He described himself and his friend, sitting on
either side of the big fireplace, contentedly smoking their
pipes, with two dogs at their feet, stretched out in the fire
light. There was nothing to suggest Franciscan poverty in
this comfortable setting.

Bishop O Collins, having decided to relieve Father Hawes
of the burden of the vast parish of Mullewa, appointed him
to Greenough, fifteen miles east of Geraldton. This town
lies in the center of a long-established farming district, with
solid stone houses and farm buildings, almost reminiscent of
a bit of English countryside. Here the new parish priest could
enjoy the sight of clumps of gnarled and twisted trees, with
dense, shady foliage. The course of the river was marked by
a serpentine procession of dark gum trees. On either side
of the plain on which Greenough lies is a long range of hills.
Just beyond them is the sea.

Father Hawes reveled in these surroundings, and here he
designed St. Peter s Church, which, unlike most of his Aus
tralian churches, is in the Gothic style. He served two other
churches about six miles distant from the town. Only his
uncomfortable two-roomed presbytery reminded him of his
Franciscan ideals. Here he set up his drawing board, and
was soon immersed in more plans: first for the proposed con
vent and chapel to be built for St. John of God s Hospital,
and then for the new Nazareth House at Bluff Point. Father
Hawes had reached a pinnacle of fulfillment and content
ment in his work. Only the thorn of the idea of Franciscan
poverty remained to prick him.

7.

The Bahamas Beckon [19S7-19S9]

FOR some time Bishop O Collins had felt that Father Hawes
deserved some official recognition for the many services he
had rendered to the diocese of Geraldton. Through the Apos
tolic Delegate he put the matter before the authorities in
Rome, with the result that on December 28, 1937, Pius XI
nominated this Australian priest as one of his domestic prel
ates. In the document, signed by Cardinal Pacelli, then
Secretary of State, it was stated that this honor was imparted
especially because of the great work done in designing the
new cathedral at Geraldton, not forgetting many other
churches and diocesan institutions.

Shortly after news of this distinction reached Father Hawes
he wrote to Mr. Selby-Hall, "The blow, alas, has fallen, and
my life is made a burden by a hail of congratulatory tele
grams. It s astonishing the amount of money people in this
country waste on telegrams, and the dear local folk awk
wardly address me as Mon-sig-nor sig rhyming with fig. It s
an overwhelming honor, when one is personally so absolutely
unworthy of it, to be made a domestic prelate/ when you
consider that many really eminent men like Hugh Benson
were not given more than the distinction of a domestic
chamberlain/ and here am I, the worst dressed and shabbiest

102

The Bahamas Beckon 103

of all the priests in this diocese, supposed to be dressed in
purple and fine linen* just the same as a bishop only without
the pectoral cross mantelletta and all! Well, you and I have
always had a special devotion to the papacy from the time
we met at Lincoln as Anglicans. It was our love and daily
prayer for the Pope that helped to bring us into the true
Church, and now the Pope has repaid me, a poor convert,
a hundredfold for that devotion by bestowing on me the
Roman purple of his own household that purple that I kiss
humbly on my knees as the colors (the school tie?) of the
church of the catacombs, and the blood of the martyrs, and
the doors of St. Peter s tomb.

"Yet, please God, if I live, I hope yet to shed my fine pur
ple feathers and, as a Benedictine oblate, to end my days
in the Bahamas in a patched old habit as plain Brother John*
(and the beard) !"

It is easy to understand how this beloved English priest
was nearly buried alive under congratulatory letters and tele
grams. He longed to escape and hide himself, if only for a
brief spell.

One day, he recalls, he accompanied Bishop O Collins to
Perth, where they lunched with the Archbishop, The latter
had just lost (none too willingly) one of his priests, his
private secretary, to the novitiate of the Friars Minor in Syd
ney. In the hope of gaining a better understanding of the
Franciscan spirit, the Archbishop had been reading Ernest
Raymond s recently published book entitled In the Steps of
St. Francis, and said that the Monsignor might be interested
in it. The latter admitted that at the moment he had too
many other things to bother about to read another life of
the Little Poor Man of Assisi, but that he went off with the
book.

"That same evening," he wrote, "my Bishop and I went to
the cinema. It was a typical and silly Hollywood film how

104 The Hermit of Cat Island

different from the beautiful Snow White we had seen to
gether some months before! As we hurried out after the
show, I saw before the entrance a poor young fellow with
a sad face playing the violin. . . . Alas! I had nothing in my
pocket- When I got back upstairs to my bedroom in the Arch
bishop s palace I was disgusted with the whole day. I thought
how worldly and grand I was becoming lunching in state
with two bishops, and being sped luxuriously around the
city of Perth and its suburbs in a magnificent automobile.
The face of that poor young fellow with the violin outside
the cinema haunted me. I sat down sadly to recite Vespers
and Compline. Then I picked up In the Steps of St. Francis,
bound in Franciscan brown, and opened it at random. The
passage on which my eyes fell ran more or less as follows
I have not the book with me so I cannot give the exact words:

"And I little brother Francis, useless servant, beg and pray hum
bly all who in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church wish to
serve the Lord God, that they will persevere in the true faith and
conversion, for otherwise they cannot be saved. I beg and beseech
you that with all our heart, with all our strength and power,
with all our desire and will, we love the Lord our God Who has
created and redeemed us. Let us therefore seek nothing else, wish
for nothing else. May nothing restrain us therefore, nothing
separate us, nothing drive us from Him.

"We may read passages such as this exhortations and
pleadings dozens of times without their making any real im
pression on our minds or any appeal to us, just as we read
such momentous words in the Holy Gospels, the words of
Jesus Christ Himself. But there comes a day sometimes when
those same familiar sentences seem to bring, standing over

us, the very writer himself or the living speaker, his eyes

fire; his tongue a sword!

"Now the Little Poor Man had come for his lost sheep.

The Bahamas Beckon 105

All my past devotion to him surged up within me to him
who walked so closely in the steps of The Master. I prayed
that night in a way I had not done for many years. About
half-past three in the morning I lay down for a couple of
hours sleep. It had been arranged for me to celebrate Mass
at the Convent of Mercy Chapel, after my Bishop. It was
the Octave of the Feast of the Epiphany, 1939. As soon as
I began the Introit, my soul was flooded with light and con
solation. I could hardly get through the Mass; I wanted to
burst into tears. I blew my nose continually. I choked and
coughed to hide my emotion. Our Lord in His pity gave me
a momentary joy on Mount Tabor that the memory of that
Mass might strengthen me afterward in all that I knew I
must go through. The great chapel was full of nuns, and the
bishop was kneeling at a prie-dieu in the doorway of the
sacristy. It was terrible, but at last I got through. The Sister-
sacristan said: You ve got a bad cold, Father/ At breakfast
in the parlor the Bishop remarked with a smile that I d been
very slow saying my Mass."

Bishop O Collins had for some time been suggesting that
Monsignor Hawes take another trip to Europe and even
urged him to go. The priest kept putting it off, explaining
that he could not get away until this or that church was
built. Bishop O Collins had come to the conclusion that the
Monsignor had given up all idea of the Bahamas missions,
just because he never mentioned the matter. And why should
he do so, how that he was a domestic prelate to His Holiness
the Pope? He had earned the right to settle down comfortably
and spend the rest of his life, enjoying himself designing
churches, and living in ecclesiastical luxury. It seems that
Monsignor Hawes could not bring himself to reveal to his
Bishop what had happened to him on the night when he had
realized so clearly that he must follow the star wherever it
guided him.

106 The Hermit of Cat Island

Anyhow, It was impossible for him to get away until the
vicar-general of the diocese returned from a holiday in
Europe. He considered later on that he had been subcon
sciously hoping that circumstances would conspire to prevent
his responding to the call from the Bahamas. One day he
summoned up his courage to ask the Bishop for permission
for a holiday, because the latter was due to make his ad
limina visit to Rome in 1940. The request was granted
without any hesitation, so Monsignor Hawes was free to
leave whenever it suited him.

At the next diocesan retreat for the clergy, the Monsignor
made up his mind to give up smoking, in view of the sort of
life which lay ahead of him. One night, when the other priests
had retired to their rooms, he went into the chapel, and laid
his pipe on the altar step. He never smoked again.

Next came the sad task of fixing the date for sailing to
Europe. He allowed himself four months to put his house in
order and to complete his work. The days sped past, and with
a sinking heart he marked them off on the calendar. In after
years he wrote: "I ought, of course, to have laid bare my soul
to my dear Bishop and told him that what I hoped to do was
to become a Franciscan tertiary and cast off the purple and
lace which I wore on ceremonial occasions in virtue of being
a right reverend monsignor, but my nerves were so strung
up that I felt I simply could not face any arguing out of the
matter. Nor could I face the additional pain of saying good-
by to my many dear friends, knowing quite well that it did
not mean just a God be with you till we meet again, but
a real farewell* forever. Nor could I put up with the ques
tioning and the fussy farewelling of the crowd, however
kindly and sincerely intended."

Just what Monsignor Hawes was visualizing at that mo
ment was described in a letter written to Sister Mary Mag
dalene. He said, "I no longer think of a striving or combative

The Bahamas Beckon 107

life on Long Island, but picture an entirely new field some
smaller out-of-the-way and unfrequented island where the
people are not visited by other missionaries, Anglican or any
Protestant sect, but to retain their own primitive unsophisti
cated type of Baptist or Holy-Roller meeting under ignorant
local preachers. I have in my mind s eye the Island of Maya-
guana, quite isolated out in the ocean, and marked on the
chart with an apparently high hill Abram s Hill [Guana
Hill] and two lesser summits. I can picture an isolated palm-
thatched cell beside a tiny stone church on Abram s Hill
whence the hermit would descend on weekends into the
settlements or village to minister to Catholic converts in their
former Baptist (or whatever it might be) meetinghouse, trans
formed into a humble Catholic place of worship, and from
which village the hermit-priest would in true Franciscan style
beg his food, such as maize, potatoes and bananas. Sunday
Mass and Benediction for the converts in their village; the
Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle and the hermit s only
daily Mass in the little church on the top of Abram s Hill."

As time wore on, the Monsignor felt he could not per
sonally disclose the true facts to his Bishop and decided to
write to him once he was on the high seas. He relied on the
promise made seven years before that when the time arrived
the Bishop would place no obstacle in the way of his taking
up work in the Bahamas. As to the ultimate decision
whether he could leave the diocese of Geraldton for good,
or must return to Australia eventually that must rest with
Bishop O Collins or his successor.

This is how the Monsignor summed up his convictions
at that moment: "When God calls us (speaking by His Holy
Spirit in our conscience) to do certain things, we must do
them or deteriorate in our spiritual life. I admire the life
around me (in which I have been taking a part), but there
is an inward movement planted by God in my soul, so I

108

The Hermit of Cat Island

believe an inescapable impulse which for so long and for
whatever I may do against it has been forcing me in another
direction. I know not (nor does it matter) whether God is
calling me now for any more work to do, or any sphere of use
fulness it may be only in order to uproot me, for the good
of my soul. Even though I may now be useless as a missionary
in the Bahamas, I can, amid the poverty and simplicity of the
people on the out islands, live a real Franciscan life in the
strict and literal observance of holy poverty according to the
Gospels, which would be impossible to do in Western Aus
tralia in anything of the same literal way."

Perhaps the hardest thing that faced him was to say good-
by to his beloved "Dominie," to whom he was utterly de-

as

Monsignor Hawes and Dominie

voted. He writes: "Dogs have the gift of second sight, they
can read our thoughts. When the beginning of the last week
came I was feeling utterly miserable. I was at work, finishing
some plans in the library of the Bishop s palace. My fox
terrier would not leave me for a moment; if I went out of
the room for only a minute to fetch something, she was after
me. She would not, as usual, settle down to sleep in one of

The Bahamas Beckon 109

the armchairs near me, but must come and lie against my
feet all the time. Now and again, when I spoke to her, look
ing up she gave me a glance so full of love and sorrow that
it filled my own eyes with tears. Did she not understand what
I knew and was grieving over the hour for the parting draw
ing nearer and nearer? It was an agony of mind for me to
leave this faithful friend who for nine years had been my
constant companion everywhere I went. However, I knew
I was leaving her in good hands, with friends who would take
care of her. It was on a farm near Greenough in such sur
roundings as she loved, with the company of little children
and horses, and plenty of rabbits to chase.

"When my indoor work was finished at last, Dominie and
I forgot our troubles and for our last three days together,
joined by her son Rory from the Hermitage, we had some
delightful rambles over the sand dunes, swimming in the sea,
and digging for crabs in the sand. Was there ever a fox ter
rier who could climb trees like Rory, or such a fearless little
swimmer through the breakers after a stick?"

At last the day came and after a cheerful little dinner party
at the Bishop s palace, Monsignor Hawes piled his baggage
in the back seat of his little green Ford and drove down to
the railroad station, Dominie beside him. Bishop O Collins
was awaiting him and the Monsignor knelt down for a final
blessing. The next day, when he reached New Norcia, he
called at the Benedictine abbey to say farewell to the Abbot
and monks. It was the end of twenty-four years as a missionary
in Western Australia.

John Cyril Hawes had reached his sixty-second year when
he left Geraldton on May 9, 1939. Three days later he sailed
from Freemantle, and as he crossed die Indian Ocean he be
gan his apologia pro vita sua with these words: "These notes
are the confessions of one who was called and who put his
hand to the plow and looked back. He is not fit for the

110 The Hermit of Cat Island

Kingdom of God. But God has been very patient. . . . Forty
years long was I grieved with this generation. ... * In my age
Our Lord sent His bold servant St. Francis to call me back
into the way, to give me another chance to become again as
a little child. I mistrust so much all that I do now that I am
doubtful whether I ought to write this. Am I being egotis
tical? May Our Lord deliver me from self-deception and
pride, from being too self-centered."

The little black-bound notebook, which was entrusted to
the author of this biography by Bishop O Collins for whose
private use it was intended, covers the whole of the life of
John Cyril Hawes from his childhood until his farewell to
Australia, stressing in particular the more important spiritual
graces he had received, and laying perhaps too much em
phasis on the countless occasions when he felt he had re
sisted God s grace and failed to answer His call. Again and
again St. Francis appears, or, rather, the urge to follow the
Franciscan way of life a persistent call to embrace holy
poverty. One is conscious on almost every page of a dual
personality in the writer: the artist, and the lover of God and
souls. The one is ever striving to master the other. At least
this is how Monsignor painted his own portrait on that six
weeks voyage back to Europe.

The book ends thus: "I am well on the way now. As I write
these words, the ship is nearing Suez. On my left rise up the
red clifflike barriers of Egypt. On my right are the blue, misty
peaks of Sinai against the morning sun. The waters of the
Red Sea are nearly past. There can be no turning back now.

"I hope soon to kneel in the Holy Sepulcher and to visit
the other holy pkces in the Master s steps. Then to Rome
to get the Holy Father s blessing. Then, Assisi. And thence,
on to what Our Lord may have in store for me. Domine quo
vadis?"

All went according to plan. Monsignor Hawes arrived at

The Bahamas Beckon HI

Jerusalem early in June, dressed himself in a Franciscan
habit, and thus disguised made his pilgrimage to the holy
places of Palestine. When he finished he set out for Italy,
and arrived at Rome on June 28. There followed an audi
ence with Pius XI and a general confession to Father Bene
dict Williamson, whom he had looked to as his spiritual di
rector for many years.

These two priests understood each other. Father William
son, like Monsignor Hawes, had practiced as an architect be
fore he was received into the Catholic Church in 1896.
After his ordination in 1909 he had designed many churches
in England, most of them as original as those of Monsignor
Hawes. He had tried and failed to revive the male branch of
the Bridgettine Order. Some time before 1939 he had set
tled in Rome as chaplain to the Little Company of Mary
at their hospital in the via San Stefano Rotondo.

He now advised Monsignor Hawes to "put yourself en
tirely and absolutely, without any conditions, in the hands
of God. His Will will be made known to you through the
external authority of His Church, speaking to you through
your Bishop. Submit the whole matter to your Bishop (when
you write), and remind him of the promise he made you
seven years ago. Pray to God (not that He will make your
Bishop do this or that, according as you want it to be), but
that the Bishop may, by his decision, make known to you
God s will for you. If the Bishop abides by his former prom
ise of years back, and sets you free to leave his diocese, then
you will know that this vocation, as it seems to you, is from
God and you can confidently follow the new life that
beckons you/ 1

With this encouragement from Father Williamson, Mon
signor Hawes left Rome for Assisi to spend a week revisiting
all the places associated with the Little Poor Man. It was
the hermitage of the Careen, on the slopes of Monte Subasio,

112 The Hermit of Cat Island

that drew him most strongly, for this was the model of a
retreat which he hoped to build for himself.

On his way to England he stopped for a few days in Paris,
where he arranged to meet his old friend and fellow student
at the Beda, Father Henry E. G. Rope. The latter recalls
that "to my wonder he had grown a beard. I knew whither
he was destined, but he said nothing about any hermitage,
and I wondered why a missionary in the Bahamas should be
unshaven. However, I doubted not he had his own good

reasons, and did not ask him It fell to me to pilot him by

omnibus and underground and afoot to the Luxembourg
Gardens and several of the churches. We had a simple meal
at an outdoor restaurant, and heard Vespers and Benediction
at St. Etienne du Mont. I had also to tell Hawes the values of
French money. Indeed I was in grave danger of imagining
myself for once, in a small measure, quite businesslikel" x

Father Rope parted reluctantly from Monsignor Hawes
who, after a short pilgrimage to Lisieux, arrived in London
on July 14. The following day he wrote a long letter to the
Bishop of Geraldton, describing his visits to the Holy Land,
Rome, Assisi and Lisieux, and said, "I have made it a real
pilgrimage and have had plenty of time for thought and
prayer, and have screwed myself up now to write this, to
remind you of a promise you made me seven years ago: that*
when the time came you would put no obstacles in the way
of my going to take up missionary work in the Bahamas
Islands/

"I have waited to see the vacant places of the diocese
filled up by the younger priests who have since come out,
and I may say that during the waiting I have grown still
more attached to, and interested in, the Geraldton diocese,
and especially since you . . . have always been so particularly
kind and considerate to me ... a very dear friend.

i Rope, op. cit., p. 14.

The Bahamas Beckon 113

"It is no feeling of unsetdement or desire of change that
moves me in this matter, but purely a matter of vocation
(as I feel). When I first became a Catholic I copied down
some words of Father Isaac Hecker (Founder of the Paulist
Fathers): The Holy Spirit is the immediate guide of the soul
in the way of salvation and sanctification; and the criterion or
test that the soul is guided by the Holy Spirit is its ready
obedience to the authority of the Church. The Holy Spirit
acting through the external authority of the Church is the
infallible interpreter of divine inspiration in the soul/ When
there is a question of vocation, it is no longer a matter de
pending on likes or dislikes. If the inner call is disregarded,
the soul will deteriorate in the spiritual life."

The Monsignor went on to tell his Bishop about the advice
given him in Rome by Father Benedict Williamson, and how
he had written down the chief events in his spiritual jour
ney in a notebook which he was about to send by air mail to
the Bishop. He said that it might help the latter to read
these confessions, adding, "Defer your decision until you
have read them and treat them as confidential; do not discuss
this matter with anyone else as indeed I know you would
not/

Having explained that Bishop Bernard, O.S.B., Vicar Apos
tolic of the Bahamas, had not influenced him in any way
since they began to correspond in 1932, he ended this letter:
"I am upset at the thought of causing you any pain or dis
appointment but, as I said, I am compelled by the strong
conviction of vocation. I leave this matter in your hands as
the one having the authority and ultimate right to decide.
Let me know your decision, by air mail, when you write.
Don t bother to return the notebook (you might put it in the
safe along with my will)/

It was not until the early part of September 1939 that
Monsignor received the first of two answers from Bishop

114 The Hermit of Cat Island

O Collins. In the first letter the Bishop assured Monsignor
Hawes that, having read the notebook mailed to him on
July 15, he was prepared to grant the priest unlimited leave
of absence from the diocese so that he could make a full trial
of the life he visualized in the Bahamas. Nevertheless, the
Bishop remarked that he doubted if the sixty-one-year-old
priest would be able to adapt himself to this austere and
literal interpretation of the primitive Franciscan way of liv
ing. "You anticipated to a certain extent what I desired/ he
wrote, "but your notebook is only part. Hence, as your
Bishop, I request you to write a full autobiography in humil
ity and in detail/

Bishop O CoIlins followed this generous acceptance of
Monsignor Hawes s plan with a second letter limiting the
leave of absence to June 1941, with the proviso that it could
be extended if the Monsignor felt he had found his true
vocation. "You may find out," he cautioned him, "after a
short time that you are not wanted in the Bahamas. You have
tried before, and you may yet live to learn that a return to
the poverty of the life in this diocese may be better for the
progress of your spiritual life. I myself should be delighted

to see you return My prayer for you shall always be that

you may be happy in the Lord. Pray for me."

It was indeed hard for the Bishop to give up his missionary
with whom he had worked so closely for so long. In 1948, in
a letter addressed to the author, Bishop O Collins remarked,
"I always found Monsignor Hawes a most colorful char
acter. He is an extraordinary person. It went very hard with
me to allow him to stay in the Bahamas. I grew to like him
much and I, as the Bishop, could never have accomplished
the many works in the way of building in the diocese of
Geraldton. He was an architect, painter, sculptor, stone
mason, decorator, poet, horseman and horse breeder.
On one occasion we two left Mullewa, his parish, between

The Bahamas Beckon 1 1 5

3 and 4 A.M. to travel to Geraldton on a goods train. We sat
on the floor of the brake van with our legs dangling over the
line and our backs resting against the side where the doors
were slid back. The atmosphere was just right, and he
proved wonderfully interesting as he talked about the far-off
days as an Anglican novice on Caldey Island. . . .

"His life has always been a very austere one; the harder
and more difficult the more he liked it. I always had the
impression that he never let up. The result of his austerities
was that he was often nervy and required careful handling.
I have wished often since I came (to Ballarat) that he was
with me. . . "

Of this latter tribute, however, Monsignor Hawes was to
remain blissfully unaware, and the two letters which he him
self received were all that he needed: God had spoken to
him through the external authority of His Church. Now with
a clear conscience he could follow the new life that beck
oned him. But first there were many old friends in England
whom he wanted to see before he sailed across the Atlantic,
probably never to return. He must also make a retreat, which
he chose to do at Buckfast Abbey, since for several years he
had been corresponding with Brother Peter, the German
lay Brother, who had trained other Brothers in masonry,
and who, with them, had built most of the great abbey
church. Monsignor Hawes also planned to visit Prinknash
Abbey, but time was limited and instead he made the long
journey to Tintagel, the high, rocky promontory on the
north coast of Cornwall where were the ruins of a castle
famous in the Arthurian romances. Here his imagination
was fired by the traces of hermits cells dating from Celtic
times which reminded him of similar cells he had seen in the
west of Ireland. He pictured erecting something of the same
kind when he had chosen a site on one of the more remote
islands in the Bahamas, visualizing himself as another St.

116 The Hermit of Cat Island

Brendan the Navigator, living in a stone beehive-shaped hut,
like the monastic cells on Skelligs Mhicil off the coast of
Kerry.

On October 16, 1939 six weeks after the outbreak of
World War II Monsignor Hawes boarded a liner bound
for New York to begin a new phase of his colorful and varied
career.

8.

Gat Island [1939-1940]

WITH his major decision now behind him, the next problem
that confronted Monsignor Hawes was the choice of a site for
his hermitage. Once in New York at St. Anselm s Priory he
was able to talk over the matter with Bishop Bernard Keven-
hoerster who was in the United States on a brief visit. The
Bishop suggested to him that he make a leisurely tour of the
Bahamas and report on conditions and prospective openings
for missionaries. As for his hermitage, he could please him
self as to its situation, although the Bishop thought that the
northern half of Long Island or perhaps Cat Island, with its
few lonely Catholics, might be suitable- With his mind filled
with these possibilities, the Monsignor went off to spend a
week with the Franciscan Missionary Sisters at Peekskill, then
returned to New York and boarded the S.S. Munargo bound
for Nassau.

On the evening of November 12 Monsignor Hawes, arrayed
in his purple sash and rochet, assisted at first Vespers and
preached the sermon for the feast of All Saints of the Benedic
tine Order in the little cathedral at Nassau. The congregation
was made up chiefly of poor colored people with a scattering
of whites, and he was delighted by the lusty singing of the
English hymns before and after Benediction. "The whole

117

118 The Hermit of Cat Island

service was very homely and hearty," he wrote, but even this
could not hold back a wave of homesickness for Australia.
The entry in his diary for that day ends, "Feeling very lonely
and miserable. Experience no pleasure in the beauty and
pleasantness of the place. This is a help to detachment
Jesus, my truly joy be Thou."

At that time the Nassau Benedictine community consisted
of Bishop Kevenhoerster, nine resident priests and one lay
Brother, with five more priests situated on other islands.
Monsignor Hawes s interest was piqued by the fact that the
younger monks went about on bicycles; he was impressed by
the missionary zeal displayed by the whole community. It
pleased him, too, to find that "Brother" Christopher, "a huge
big Negro in minor orders . , . was at the Propaganda College
in Rome, and knows all the younger of the Geraldton and
Perth priests, having been their fellow student. He is also a
seigeant major, and drills all the volunteers and recruits for
the Bahamian Army. Giving evening classes in Spanish,
Italian and French is another of his jobs." *

He wrote down his newly refreshed impressions of Nassau,
describing it as "the loveliest and pleasantest little town I ve
ever seen so bright and cheerful and picturesque. . . .
Pretty houses, the stone and plastered walls distempered in
pinks and yellows or dazzling whitewash; gray, pine-shingled
roofs, hips and gables and quaint dormers; overhanging
balconies with every type of shutters, jalousies and trelliswork
... all the colors of southern Spain with the neatness, trinmess
and cleanliness of old-country England." And the landscape,
". . . palm trees, casuarinas and every species of gorgeous
tropical flowers . . . and such quaint little narrow, winding
streets, uphill and downhill, with cuttings through the
natural rock, and steps hewn into it."

i Christopher Foster, "Brother" Christopher, actually was not a member
of the community, but was only a candidate lor the Oblates of St. Benedict.

Cat Island 119

Then the harbor in "masts and rigging between every
block of shops or market buildings: trim white schooners and
sloops at anchor on the transparent blue and opalescent green
waters of the harbor, which, with its wharves, is a busy place.
Ships are always arriving or leaving. Yesterday there were
half a dozen or so island mail boats, and I saw a big Canadian
steamer painted wartime gray with a gun mounted on her
poop. Airplanes arrive three times a week from Miami, and
come down onto the water in the harbor."

In spite of the charms of the scenery, Monsignor Hawes
did not remain long at Nassau. Within three days of his ar
rival he had boarded the mail steamer, Monarch of Nassau, to
visit some of his old friends on Long Island. After a very
stormy passage, the steamer anchored off Arthur s Town, Cat
Island, on the morning of November 17.

That same day, about 2 P.M., when approaching the Bight,
the seasick passenger had his first glimpse of his future home.
He recorded in his diary: "As I viewed the shore from the
Monarch s deck, two things struck my eye at once: the high
hill at the back, and a large square ruin in the center of the
settlement. The latter suggested a fine place for the Catholic
church, and the hilltop for a retired hermitage. ... I asked
the captain how high the hill was and he said die government
survey chart marked it at 420 feet, the highest land in the
Bahamas. Most of the islands are low, with little hills of 100
or sometimes 200 feet, but they look higher than they are be
cause of their steep and rocky outline, like miniature toy
mountains, especially as the houses are small and lend scale
to the scene. Trees are small, too."

When the steamer docked, Monsignor Hawes found a
rough track that led eastward out from the settlement and
curled about through the "bush" until it ended at the foot
of the last bit of steep summit. Leaving the track, he fought
his way for three quarters of an hour through the thick bush,

120 The Hermit of Cat Island

climbing over irregular, jagged faces of rock, until he was
about a mile and a half from the sea front. It was a wild and
lonely spot with a magnificent view, including the ocean on
the east side of the island. The priest surveyed the terrain
carefully, then made his way back to the sea to inspect the
ruin. Here bushes grew inside and a tall wild fig tree had
climbed one inner corner. "The ruin reminded me of some
of those on the site of old Panama city," he wrote. "Good
thick walls built of squared stones. House of some planter in
the early slavery days."

The Monarch sailed about sunset, and after a rough pas
sage made San Salvador the following morning. Here Mon-
signor Hawes was welcomed by Father Herbert Buerschinger,
O.S.B., and he celebrated Mass in the new stone-vaulted
church, which he greatly admired. Late in the evening of
November 18, as the mail steamer entered Clarence Town
harbor on Long Island, on a distant hilltop he caught sight of
St. Paul s Anglican church which he had designed nearly
thirty years before. The next morning Sunday he beheld
its twin baroque towers, gleaming white in the brilliant sun
shine. "The Pearl of the Bahamas," the out-island people
and sailors called this church, so he jotted down in his diary.
But now he could not worship in this lovely church, and had
to say Mass in the ground-floor room of a former store that
served as a temporary Catholic chapel.

Many of the older people on Long Island remembered
their one-time Episcopalian pastor. Some of them fell on their
knees and hugged him. One old blind woman threw her arms
around his neck, crying out: "Father Jerome! Father Jerome!
To think I live to this day that you come to see me again! O
my good Jesus, I thank You!" The Monsignor was told that
the Catholics at Clarence Town were all colored people. At
Deadman s Cay they were mostly poor white folk. Here a new

Cat Island 121

church, dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, had been
built in 1938.

Long Island proved to be in a desperate state. Droughts,
followed by heavy rains, had destroyed all the seeds planted.
A plague of worms had eaten all the roots and fruit There
were no crops, and no price for sisal. A disease had killed all
the sponges. The sponge fleet was idle, and the boats laid up.
The people were literally starving. There were no peas, no
beans, no sweet potatoes or bananas. The poor could earn no
money to buy any sugar or coffee. All they lived on was the
yield of their little plantations, supplemented by gifts of corn
and flour from Father Arnold Mondloch, O.S.B., who had
the charge of Long Island. Nearly all the out islands were in a
similar state of destitution, but Long Island had been hit the
hardest. Andros was very bad, too.

Monsignor Hawes described the plight of Jonathan
Knowles, a white man, who had been struck with blindness
and was now eighty years old. "I found his former good stone
house had been destroyed by a hurricane in 1926. He was now
living in a miserable wooden shack, about nine feet square,
with a palm-thatched roof a picturesque enough scene,
with its setting of palm trees and rich foliage on a rocky
eminence looking down over the sparkling waters of the great
lagoon. But wide cracks gaped between every ant-eaten board
and daylight through the thatch. The old man lay on his bed,
just a skinful of bones. His good wife said, He s got such pain
inside from emptiness, he s just turned his face to the wall to
die there s nothing else for us! She told me that they
shivered at night with the cold winds, and were often soaked
with rain. I looked at the few cooking utensils; not one grain
of corn enough for a mouse to nibble. Don t the neighbors
help you? I asked. She replied, They don t come to see us
now, because they can t; they ve nothing themselves/ "

122 The Hermit of Cat Island

The effect of being confronted by poverty which was more
austere than that of any Franciscan community had an im
mediate effect on the Monsignor. It drove home to him what
was demanded of him as a tertiary and a follower of the Little
Poor Man. The first thing he did was to make a resolution to
sleep on the floor instead of on a bed. He tried it for the
first time on hard concrete, and admitted that the mosquitoes
and sand flies did not leave him much peace.

He jotted down in his diary: "We must follow the example
of the Holy Father who offers himself to do penance for the
war, which in itself is a punishment for the nations forget-
fulness and rejection of God. . . . Here on Long Island the
people are simple, unsophisticated and religious-minded.
They live in great poverty, whites as well as colored people.
They go barefooted and eat very little. . . . They remind me
much of the Arab and other native people in Palestine. With
such primitive conditions as are to be found in most of the
out islands of the Bahamas one could not attain to a closer
Franciscan observance of the Gospel poverty than simply to
live among the people as they live > and to share their priva
tions and hardships as cheerfully as they bear these them
selves."

Even Father Arnold had not much to offer his distin
guished guest in the way of food. The meals consisted of
hominy or boiled rice, with white beans and onions, and
black coffee. But the Monsignor felt he was "indulging in
gluttony in the midst of such abject poverty and want all
around/

In the midst of new preoccupation, Monsignor Hawes had
not forgotten his dog Dominie in Australia. He wrote, "The
loss of her companionship is the greatest cross of all. That I
should feel the separation from an animal far more than that
from any living human being ... is, I suppose, a sign of my
unspiritual mind. I thank God for His goodness in letting

Cat Island 123

me have the enjoyment for nine years of such an affectionate
and loyal Mend. If only I could love God and be content and
happy when in His Presence as the little bitch was in mine,
then I should do well. I can t help grieving, and I feel so
lonely, but I try not to fret, because Dominie is in good
hands.

"Tin-pot theologians are never weary of emphasizing that
animals have no souls and no rights and no future. Well, I
know my theology enough to know that an animal has not
got a rational soul, but it has an animal soul/ and of such a
sort that those most beautiful of God s gifts of love and
loyalty (virtues not found in cabbages) shine out in a pre
eminent degree in the said animal soul. Love is not a perish
able thing. Whatever some professors of theology may say,
the Catholic Church does not, nor has need to, lay it down
that there is no future existence for the animal creation.
Well! To the end of my life I shall hold firm to this senti
ment, because love, per se, is a gift for eternity."

Monsignor Hawes returned to Nassau for the feast of the
Immaculate Conception to find that a friend had sent him a
copy of the Christmas number of the Western Mail contain
ing colored pictures of West Australian ranges, forests, farms
and gum trees. Once again he felt "very, very homesick." But
this feeling partially disappeared when on December 15 he
sailed for Harbour Island, Eleuthera. At Dunmore Town, a
lovely spot, with a perfect conjunction of beauties of land and
sea, he found a fair-sized stone church, a convent with three
Sisters of Charity, and good school buildings. Eleuthera was
"a real garden Paradise." Conditions were very different from
those on Long Island. There was plenty of food. Bananas sold
at six for a penny. Coconuts were cheap and plentiful. The
presbytery was comfortable and modern.

The garden contained some fine palm trees. Father Lean-
der Roerig was the perfect host. Then there were enjoyable

124 The Hermit of Cat Island

sails over blue waters to some of the out stations, for instance
to the Lower Bogue where there was "such a gem of a little
church, with the altar excavated out of the solid rock of the
hillside by cutting away down to the steps and floor of the
sanctuary."

Father Leander went off for Christinas and left the Mon-
signor in charge of Dunmore Town. After the midnight Mass,
which was sung amid clouds of incense, the youth of the set
tlement ran wild, exploding firecrackers. The result was that
the priest got no sleep before it was time to rise again for his
second Mass at seven-thirty. He wrote in his diary that he was
"reduced to a complete nervous wreck, with the heart pump
ing furiously."

In the solitude of the presbytery he opened his diary and
made the following entry:

"December 25, 1939. God has now called me to the greatest
cross of my life and the greatest separation from the world. I
look back too much, and am longing again for that which I
have surrendered to God. I must make these thoughts on the
past an act of thanksgiving and gratitude. How good God has
been to me. And now He wishes to be more so in another
way, new to me, if only I will but trust Him.

"How happy I was last Christmas. I had moved into my
little presbytery at Greenough. I arranged my books and my
drawing things in the sitting room. I cooked spaghetti a
I ltalienne and had a bottle of claret the Bishop had given
me. There was a nice plateful of meat for Dominie, with a
real good bone. Then I sat down comfortably in the easy
chair, lit my pipe, and my dear doggie jumped up on my lap
and buried her nose between my knees. I read the Universe
and the Catholic Herald. Then got into the little green car,
Dom by my side, and set down over the river bridge to fetch
a paralyzed girl and her mother and the old man* for mid
night Mass. How beautiful was the service! There was no

Cat Island 125

kerosene for the lamps, so the church was as dim and mys
terious as the cave at Bethlehem, with only the flickering light
of the six candles on the altar and two tapers each before the
images of Our Lady and the Sacred Heart. There was another
candle on the confessional and one on the closed organ case.
No distractions as to marshaling into order a lot of altar boys.
No directing of a procession to the crib, with all the worry
and anxiety as to whether everything was going all right, as it
used to be at Mullewa. There was no music and singing just
the dim, spacious church, well-filled benches of silent wor
shipers, and the glorious liturgy.

"Then, after running people home in the car, I returned
to the presbytery. Next a refreshing sleep, with the soothing
music of Dominie s gentle snoring in the basket beside the
bed where I could reach out my hand to pat her. In the fresh
morning the sound of the sea beyond the dunes and the lovely
warm air, sunshine and scuttling rabbits as we went over the
hill and down to Bootenal and Walkaway. And in the after
noon a delightful run up to the Hermitage to see dear old
Jim, with an uproarious meeting between Dominie and her
son Rory. Then on down to the palace, and a joyful Christmas
reunion with the Bishop and some of the clergy. So happy
and settled was I at Christmas. But then at the octave of the
Epiphany all this peace was upset by the vision of the star,
the call within my soul. Ah! the Hound of Heaven!

"Well, why am I writing all this down? My pen is running
away with me. I suppose it is to follow my heart, which has
flown home across the oceans. Last week I was delving into a
life of St. Teresa which I found on Father Leander s book
shelves. The saint says: St. Peter lost nothing by throwing
himself into the sea, though he was afterward afraid. God
loves courageous souls, but they must be humble and have no
confidence in themselves/ "

Monsignor Hawes went on to describe two ways of looking

126 The Hermit of Cat Island

at the missionary and apostolic life from the point of view of
the priest or religious: (1) The Way of Prudence and (2)
The Way of Divine Folly. He was absolutely sure that he had
been called to give up the former, which he had adopted for
many years because he had not been courageous enough to
try the latter. It was just a matter of vocation. Now he knew
that he had been called toward the contemplative and ere
mitical life. God had shown him the way; he dared not turn
back to the way of prudence. He confessed on paper: "I am a
priest of God but not a man of God. I have not been a man of
prayer. I am a well without water, a fountain dried up,
self-centered, self-seeking, a lover of pleasures, recreation, ease
and comfort; immersed in outward activities. The ears of my
soul are stopped up with active works lest I should halt and
listen* What pleases me or serves my ends I labor for, espe
cially architecture, with an intensity and devotion that looks
like fervor. I love work more than all else. I look at the life of
a St Francis of Assisi, or a Charles de Foucauld, and either
such lives as theirs are an illusion, or else mine is!

"Be courageous. Those holy saints I admire; sinner, miser
able sinner and backslider as I am, I will start to try to imi
tate them in their love of solitude, silence, abnegation and
penance. When, and not until after, I have done this will I
know whether there is any definite work for me to do among
others. Come ye apart into a desert place and rest awhile; to
rest (not the body) but the soul, to refresh it. Put ye on the
Lord Jesus Christ, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in
me/ "

So on December 28 he returned to Nassau on the mail boat.
Here he found a letter saying that the storekeeper on Cat
Island was prepared to sell five acres of land on the top of
Coma Hill, as well as the block with a ruined house which
would do as a church. Bishop Bernard raised no objections.
The Monsignor went on praying that it would not be long

Cat Island 127

before he had found a place apart in the wilderness to go to,
and where he might come nearer to God.

On the last day of the year 1939 he noted in his diary that
his hermitage must be called "La Verna, because it is the
highest hill in all the Bahamas, and must be consecrated to
God, It must be a beacon, a holy place in the keeping of His
Church. Ara Coeli Monte Alvernia"

He recognized that conditions were very different from
those in the days when penitents and solitaries went out into
the mountains or woods and built their cells where they
fancied. Now, if you wanted to camp in the middle of a lonely
place you must find the owners and get the title deeds and
have the ground surveyed. Blessed Bernard of Quintavalle,
the first disciple of St. Francis, got rid of his house and all his
earthly possessions on the very same day. But Monsignor
Hawes, after nearly five months of negotiations with his law
yer, still had not managed to wind up his affairs, including
the selling of his railroad shares and other investments. What
worried him most was an annuity he could not rid himself
of that. He decided that all he could do was to arrange for
the money to be paid to Bishop Bernard, and ask him to make
use of it for charitable purposes, and at the same time to give
the hermit such alms as would be needed to disburse among
the poor, or for carrying on public worship. A visit to the
leper settlement across the south side of the island of New
Providence gave Monsignor Hawes further inspiration for
imitating the life of St. Francis in the most literal manner pos
sible.

On December 30 he drew up yet another series of good
resolutions, confessing that he could not resist looking back
almost daily, and wishing he could return to his easy, com
fortable existence in Australia. There was still time to change
his mind and inform Bishop O Collins that he realized he had
made a mistake in thinking he was called to be a hermit. But

128 The Hermit of Cat Island

he knew he could not turn back, for Father Benedict William
son, his spiritual director, had written from Rome: "Wel
come to your new home and apostolate. I am sure in em
bracing your life of real Franciscan poverty you are follow
ing the call of God. It is a great vocation one this poor world
needs more than all else."

So Monsignor Hawes resolved, "The new life I am called to
begin must be more hidden-solitary. To preach the Gospel in
silence, living not only as a priest but as a hermit. Beati
pauperes: that is the beatitude I want; and on a secluded
hilltop, upraised as an altar, yet withdrawn from the habita
tions of the settlement. I have now found a corner where I
believe my soul will be well. Solitude, Poverty, Abjection,
Obscurity. That is my vocation now, that of a Franciscan
hermit. Charles de Foucauld was called to be a hermit and
not a missionary/ yet laid the foundations of missionary work
in the Sahara. If I live the life God shows me, I may bear
fruit. It will be made clear to me what sort of missionary
work (if any) I am to do. But I must not throw myself
into the work, but wait for it to come to me from the
Lord

"Since I have not attained (and perhaps my temperament
may not be suited) to that interior mortification that accepts
with equal indifference all experiences whether pleasing or
contrary to nature, therefore I return very gratefully into
God s hands those gifts he has showered on me so plentifully
in the past: the enjoyment and fellowship of my brother
priests; human respect; the solace of horses and dogs; de
light in my little car and driving it; and the absorbing inter
est of architectural work . . . also minor things, but things to
which we are apt to become enslaved. ... I fear that they
may absorb me to such an extent as to deny me leisure or in
spiration for that constant attendance upon the thought of
God that the Christian who is striving after perfection, and

Cat Island 129

still more the priest, ought to have. This is the prime motive
of St. Francis in his love of poverty."

Then he recorded his New Year s resolutions for 1940:
"I offer to Thee my God my soul and body as a reasonable
holy and living sacrifice in union with that of my Saviour on
the Cross and in the Mass. I wish to unite my intentions with
those of Our Holy Father the Pope, Pius XII, especially for
peace. He has offered his life to God for the peace of the
world. I would likewise offer mine, poor and worthless as it
is, but I have no desire to live no wish at all for a long life.
I put myself absolutely in Thy Holy Hands, O Lord. I offer
my life to live it in suffering or pain or disease, to accept
anything Thou sendest me: rheumatism, cancer, blindness,
stroke, drowning at sea, to become a leper. Give me absolute
resignation to Thy will to be ready to accept disappoint
ment, frustration of all my plans; misunderstanding from
others. Fiat voluntas Tua"

The first week of the new year dragged past slowly. It was
a relief when Bishop Bernard told Monsignor Hawes that he
wanted him to go to Long Island to give help to Father
Arnold. For the time being he was to take charge of the settle
ment at Deadman s Cay. But this was not to be until after
Easter, so he could stay on Cat Island meantime. He calcu
lated that coming and going from one island to the other
would be expensive if he was dependent on the irregular and
infrequent services of the mail boats. It would be more eco
nomical to run a boat of his own, which he could sail with a
colored boy to help him. He recalled that between 1909 and
1911 he had sailed his own boat the Hispaniola up and down
the coast of Long Island, and even once to Nassau. There was
no reason why he should not adopt the same mode of trans
port, even if he was now in his sixty-fourth year, and not
quite so agile as he was as a young Anglican Franciscan mis
sionary. .

130 The Hermit of Cat Island

What worried him was: could he, as a Franciscan hermit,
vowed to holy poverty, become the owner of a boat? He wrote
in his diary: "There is no way of getting from Cat Island to
Long Island except by sea. One can do without a horse or a
car and can walk. Our Lord and the apostles used to sail
across the Sea of Galilee, even though they could have walked
round by the coast as the crowd of people did. The boat
would be for mission work, and as there are no Catholic
stations yet on Cat Island, I can sleep in the boat a hermit
age on the waves. But I regard it only as a temporary ex
pedient until such time as I can settle down permanently on
one or other of the islands and be rid of the necessity of cross
ing. If I can settle on my miniature mountain top at the
Bight of Cat Island ... all will be perfect."

The maritime-minded Monsignor found out that Abaco
was the best island for picking up a good boat. Many boats
were built there for the sponge fisheries, and it was then the
off season. Boats could be bought cheaply. He began to study
books on navigation in the Bahamas, and smiled when one
author informed him that "anyone condemned to travel regu
larly on these waters goes in constant danger of his life." For
practical reasons a boat was essential. It would enable him to
carry all the tools and building materials needed for erecting
the hermitage. They would not have to be dumped ashore at
once. Again, if the boat should be caught becalmed and then
struck by a gale on some open "tongue" of ocean, or stove
in on the rocks of a lee shore, or run on a sunken reef, the
seaman-priest would be safe in God s hands. "After all, one
can be drowned but once, and it eliminates the funeral." At
the end of these jottings came the prayer: "Our Lady Star of
the Sea, I take refuge under thy mantle, there will I live and
die. St. Nicholas, patron of sailors and St. Christopher, patron
of travelers, pray for me."

No time was wasted. On January 10, 1940, Monsignor

Fra Jerome^

he Hermit of

Cat Island

Father Hawes
and Dominie
(1933)

Monsignor Hawes
(1938)

John C.

Hawes

(1919)

0?? a journey in Western Australia

Cat Island 131

Hawes boarded the mail boat Priscilla bound for Marsh
Harbor, Abaco. His companion was a twenty-five-year-old
colored man, Victor Fergusson, a good seaman who had been
loafing around Nassau when the priest met him. A ship s
compass was packed in the priest s bag because he hoped to
return in a sailing boat if he managed to find one that
seemed suitable. He had also taken a papal flag and a red
ensign, given him by Mr, Selby-HalL The following day,
after examining several boats, he bought the Olga for forty-
five pounds cash down. This sum included a well-built
dinghy. In his diary were noted most carefully the measure
ment of the boat, which was twenty-two feet over all, with
an eight-foot beam. Having purchased a cracked Dutch oven,
a quart of corn grits and a loaf of bread, filled up the water
keg and put his suitcase aboard, the Monsignor told Victor
to up anchor, and the Olga sailed at midday.

Twelve pages of his diary are taken up with a detailed log
of this first voyage of the Olga. It took nearly five days to
make Nassau. Every change of wind is recorded, every shift
ing of sail. One can picture the boat racing along as the big
ocean waves loomed up behind and rolled under her, rising
ahead like the serrated ridge of a mountain range. One can
almost hear the wind whistling in the rigging and the flap
ping of the sails.

"We anchored the first night under the lee of Falcon
Crags. Up anchor at dawn and sailed after breakfast of coffee
and bread; anchoring again in a small sandy cove near the
ruins of Wilson City, once flourishing lumber camp. Victor
went ashore to get firewood, and filled three bags with sand
for extra ballast. Then wind ahead, and short, heavy seas
rolling in. Victor stood on the bowsprit to keep lookout for
reefs and rocks while I steered. He could tell the depth of
water to a nicety just by the different shades of color. At
4:30 P.M. we ran into Cherokee Sound and anchored for the

132

The Hermit of Cat Island

night. We slept on the bare boards with damp sand bags for
pillows. Victor snored all night. I had a very stiff neck and
rheumatic shoulder."

The sailors spent two days in Cherokee Sound, hoping for
a change of wind. At dawn each morning Monsignor Hawes
celebrated Mass. He hoisted the papal flag on the mainmast
and the red ensign over the stern. The altar stone and cloths
were placed on the cabin top, while the celebrant stood in
the hatch, facing forward.

"It was so beautiful," he wrote, "so still, a pall of white
mist over the land, with only the hilltops and the tops of the

Mass Aboard the Roma

forest trees visible above it. The sun rose as I came to the
Sanctus. I said these Masses for peace, and for the conver
sion of the Bahamas to the Faith, and for a blessing upon
the inhabitants of the settlement at Cherokee Sound."

Then it was discovered that the upper gudgeon of the
rudder was worn to the thinness of a wedding ring. It
would have been unsafe to risk putting to sea, so the Mon
signor decided to wait until the next mail boat called, and
get her to tow the Olga back to Nassau. To fill in the time,

Cat Island 133

he painted out the lettering on the stern, substituting ROM
for OLG until the Olga became the Roma. But he grew
tired of this delay, and having tied up the rudder head to the
deck rings as a precaution, hoisted sail, and ran down the
coast to the coconut palm-fringed bay, near which was the
settlement of Crossing Rocks.

A young man came out in a boat, and invited the visitors
to come ashore with him. Such a welcome! In the ramshackle
old Baptist chapel an informal concert was held that eve
ning, with much clapping and loud applause. "Two young
ladies, black as the stove, in great wide-brimmed feathered
hats and smart frocks, sang a duet: *De wall it am so high you
cannot get ober it; de wall am so low you cannot get under it;
de wall am so wide you cannot get wound it. Only de Lord
can let you in/ Apparently they referred to the New Jeru
salem."

The skipper and his mate once again boarded the Roma.
Sixty-five miles of open ocean now lay between them and
Nassau harbor, once they had passed "Hole-in-the-Wall"
lighthouse, seven miles out of Cherokee. The wind dropped.
Heavy black clouds hid the sun and obscured the land. A
squall was not far off.

"I called up Victor, who was asleep below, and we reefed
the mainsail. Drops of rain. Sound of approaching wind
and waves. Drenching downpour about 5 P.M. Three quarters
of an hour to sunset, but almost dark already. The gale
coming from right aft, due north. Heavy sea. Just the wind
for Nassau, but pretty tough. Danger of jibbing, so lower
mainsail more and haul in boom. An extra big wave crashes
the dinghy (towecl behind) into Roma s stern, breaking its
bow. The rebound of the rope with a terrific tug pulls the
stem right out of the small boat. The wreck disappears in
the inky darkness. A bad loss five pounds gone west. At any
rate, we are safer now and make more speed.

134 The Hermit of Cat Island

"Then a big crash and flapping. Our jib tears away from
the jib sheets. I go forrad and struggle with it. Get soused
as waves break over the bow. Let go halyards and tie the jib
down to the bowsprit. Far too busy and alert to feel sea
sick! Pitch-dark night. No moon. No stars. Hurricane lamp
(an old one left on the boat) goes out. I try, but fail to
get it alight again, so can t see compass. Victor proves to be
a splendid seaman absolutely fearless and never flurried,
but he s now overcome by sleep, although he did have a nap
in the afternoon. Young men need more sleep than we old
fellows dol I ve had none since the previous night, and
precious little then, owing to stiff neck.

"We reef down some more of the mainsail, and I send
Victor below at 11:30 P.M. There s a faint glow on the sky
line right ahead. Deo gratias. Nassau light on the great con
crete water tower, still about thirty miles away. How my
eyes ache, fixing them on that glow. I see the light on the
weather bow to starboard. Then, as a great white-crested
roller heaves us up as it surges up and throws her stern
round a bit, I see the light next right on the port bow
beyond the edge of the mainsail, and have to wear away
again to bring it back ahead on the starboard bow. One
hallucination that pressed in on me continually was the im
pression of a flat white plain lying beyond a solid black wall,
with a pine-clad mountain rising on the right. The foam
from the boat and the nearby curling sea horses showed up
with a phosphorescent glow.

"Deo grottos. Now the actual light itself (of the light
house) appeared above the black, watery horizon. It was a
fearful struggle to keep my eyes open; but how fascinating!
I recalled those words of the Psalms and murmured to myself:
*I am come into the depth of the sea; and a tempest hath
overwhelmed me, . . . Thy way is in the sea, and thy paths
in many waters Thou, who troublest the depths of the

Cat Island 135

sea, the noise of its waters/ I tried to pray to the God that
rulest the power of the sea; and begged Him to appease the
motion of the waves thereof.

"One seemed very near the borderland of the other
world, and quite indifferent, and without fear, as to whether
one crossed over. In danger and hardship (amidst nature)
one has an intuitive faith in the existence of God and the
immortality of the soul. They that go down to the sea in
ships, doing business in great waters, they shall see the
works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep/ I was cer
tainly beholding those wonders that night.

"I had seen one day into another, and now one o clock,
two o clock, and soon the lights of the town are visible, so I
shout down the hatchway and call Victor up to give me a
spell. My eyes are so tired. How we seem to be rushing on,
nearer and nearer, and so many confusing lights in front.
Victor knows his way in good pilot. When we get close to
the lighthouse he stands forward and cons and I steer
again. What a relief to get under the lee of the raging
breakers on the bar! We have to jibe, and a big wave nearly
sweeps us both off the deck. Now a peaceful run up to the
anchorage among other boats under the lee of Hog Island.
It s 3 A.M. After the loss of the dinghy, freed from its pull,
the Roma must have made nearly eight knots (ten miles)
an hour, f O Roma felix! Victor replies, God be thanked!
He reckons the Roma is a bird! In die words of the Psalmist
I say: They rejoiced because the Lord brought them to the
haven which they wished for/ "

This first of many adventurous voyages in the Roma re
veals the character of the sixty-four-year-old priest and would-
be hermit. The odyssey speaks for itself, and needs no com
ment or explanation. The boat was beached for repainting
and repairs and Bishop Bernard came down to inspect her.
Everybody thought she had beautiful lines. As for her skip-

136 The Hermit of Cat Island

per, he suffered from a stiff neck and bad rheumatic pains for
several weeks.

About this time he wrote to a friend in Engknd that from
now on he must be addressed as "Reverend Father Jerome,"
explaining that "there are no monsignori known on Cat
Island; neither is there any such person known there by the
name of Hawes or Reverend John or *J. C. Hawes/ " From
this time he was known by the name that he stuck to for the
rest of his life: "Fra Jerome."

On February 1 he and Victor sailed at 4 A.M. for Cat Island,
with about forty-seven miles of open sea ahead of them. The
following morning he celebrated Mass at daybreak on the
boat, having anchored the previous night in a little cove at
West Shroud on Cistern Cay. The voyage took nearly four
days, for the wind shifted continually. Again and again a
great black wall would roll up, towering so steep that it looked
as if it would break right over the little ship, but the Roma
just slid up the steep slope. The hours went by slowly. Hot
meals were out of the question. Fra Jerome and Victor were
reduced to munching hard ship s biscuit.

All day, as they sailed past Great Guana Cay, and went
out east through Galliot Cut, the seas got rougher. They had
to haul the new dinghy on board and lash it down on the
weather side of the cabin trunk. The sun was hidden be
neath an inky black sky. Both Fra Jerome and Victor were
soaked through. Then the jib sheets tore away. It was not
until after 9 P.M. on the night of February 3 that Victor
caught sight of the lighthouse on Devil s Point, Cat Island.
They ran into smoother water under the shelter of the land
about midnight, but it was too dangerous to anchor. All they
could do was cruise up and down until dawn. As soon as it
was light enough Fra Jerome steered the Roma through the
reef off Port Howe, where they anchored near the long, sandy
shore. It was Sunday morning.

Cat Island 137

"We landed in the dinghy, I felt utterly weary and ex
hausted; no meal since breakfast the previous day, but a
swim restored me a bit. We rigged up an altar on two short
bits of board, out of the dinghy s flooring, in the bush fring
ing the shore. Here I celebrated Mass, facing east across the
sparkling opal-green water of the harbor within the bar. To
ward the end of Mass I saw another man standing beside
Victor, gazing intently at me. I had avoided seeking the peo
ple, but the Mass had brought them to me. The stranger be
sought me to visit his settlement a few miles farther on. I
went next morning, and he offered me a plot of land with
an unfinished house on it, begun before his father died. So
this was to be the first Catholic church on Cat Island. *

Refreshed with a breakfast of hot black coffee, pancakes
and bananas, the skipper and mate lay down for a well-earned
sleep. Then in the afternoon, having hoisted the papal flag,
they sailed on to Port Howe. "I stepped ashore in my tertiary
habit," Fra Jerome wrote, "a plain, shapeless, sacklike gray
tunic with the Franciscan cord, and a large crucifix hanging
from it attached to the rosary beads. I was wearing sandals.*
He was welcomed with open arms, and the people crowded
around, begging him to "hold church" that evening. A Mrs.
Deveaux offered the use of her fine eighteenth-century house
for services. There was only one Catholic woman with her
baby in the congregation. "I gave out some hymns that they
all knew Rock of Ages/ Nearer, My God, to Thee, and
Lead, Kindly Light/ They were sung very heartily. I
preached on The Rock of Peter : the Church that Our
Blessed Lord founded on St. Peter and the Apostles. A great
many said they would like to become Catholics if I m going
to remain on the island and if a Catholie church is built.
Some of the people have friends or relatives in Nassau who
are Catholics. Also they are acquainted with the good work
done by the Benedictines in visiting the sick in the hospital,

138 The Hermit of Cat Island

and among the lepers. They seemed to know all about the
good works of the Catholic Sisters of Charity in Nassau."

By the end of a week more than enough people had come
forward to make quite a big congregation, and Fra Jerome
immediately began to give them simple religious instruc
tions and to teach them a few hymns. A room in the Deveaux
house served as his temporary quarters. His hostess, Mrs.
Deveaux, a mulatto who was the second wife of the last of
the line of Deveauxs, was much distressed because he refused
to sleep in a bed and preferred the bare boards. But on the
second night he compromised with a mattress stuffed with
native grass, which proved very soft and comfortable.

On Shrove Tuesday, February 6, Fra Jerome walked over
land to the Bight, a distance of fourteen miles, carrying a
small suitcase containing everything needed for Mass. That
evening he met the three owners of the property that em
braced Coma Hill and, after much bargaining, they agreed to
sell eight acres for thirty-five pounds. Then, having borrowed
a hurricane lamp and a blanket from Commissioner Wells,
Fra Jerome found his way along the narrow, rocky path
through the brush. There was starlight, but no moon. At
last he reached the top of the hill, with much clambering
over the rocks. He lay down on a narrow ledge of rock, partly
sheltered by bushes, to sleep beneath the stars.

"Ash Wednesday. At dawn I chose the most sheltered
place I could from the wind a ledge of rock on the north
west side of the summit. Here I laid out the altar stone,
clothes, etc. I began with the Asperges, and walked round
the site of the future oratory and blessed it, according to the
directions given in the Roman Ritual Then I lit a little fire
in a hole in the face of the rock beside my altar and burned
some leaves and blessed the ashes. After this I celebrated
Mass, standing barefooted, balanced on the upper edge of an
overturned slab of rock. It was rather like saying Mass on the

Cat Island 139

topsail yardarm of a ship! What a glorious view I had right
below and behind me land and sea, hills, woods and inland
lakes." This diary entry marked the practical beginnings of
Fra Jerome s eremitical existence. Now the hermit wasted
no time in working out the details of the labor involved.

February 13 he sailed the Roma up into the Bight, along
side the jetty, and unloaded all her cargo, including eight
bags of cement, tools, shovels, picks and crowbars. The people
crowded around, eager to be given paid jobs. Work started
at once. Some men widened the track of approach from the
sea to Coma Hill; others using ponies "toted" up water, sand,
lime, etc. There was plenty of work involved in clearing the
brush from the summit and in constructing a water tank.
Fra Jerome, his gray robes tucked up, sped from one group
to another, giving directions, aid and encouragement.

"The work begins at seven o clock," he wrote. "That
means actually about 8 A.M. in the normal run of things.
Then they knock off an hour for breakfast at nine, and again
from 1 to 2 P.M. Finally they knock off about 4 P.M. according
to the foreman s watch. According to mine it is often nearer
three-thirty. . . . But what does it matter? They are dear,
simple people and very willing. Our days are short: sunrise
at six-thirty and sunset soon after six. I give them little
presents of tobacco, and they present me with papaws, ba
nanas, eggs, beans, peas, etc. I willingly give a day s work
to some old man who talks a lot and does very littlel

"I am also providing and endowing a school for the Dead-
man s Cay people on Long Island, and paying for the mate
rials to finish the little church at Baintown. I hope to have
enough money to convert the old warehouse at Port Howe
into a church, which will be a good-sized one. When my her
mitage is built and all the money gone, then I can feel I am
a real Franciscan. I will plant a little field of red corn (maize)
below the hermitage, and grow some casavas, beans and peas,

140 The Hermit of Cat Island

and make my own tea of lime leaf, and be self-supporting
as well as self-laboring/

For the first few days the architect clerk-of-the-works re
turned each night to his floating hermitage, lying at anchor
offshore, and slept on board. But after a strenuous day s
work this was an exhausting process, and when one of the
natives mentioned the existence of a large cave on the
northern side of the summit with an entrance in a low cliff
of rock, Fra Jerome went off at once to explore its possibil
ities. It was even better than he had hoped, and he took pos
session at once, dragging in tree branches to sleep upon and
constructing a rough altar of loose rocks under a natural
funnel-shaped skylight. Fra Jerome was delighted with this
realization of such a Franciscanlike hermitage; enthralled
with the view and the singing of the birds on his own hilltop,
he felt transported to Mount Alvernia.

Then almost immediately below the walls of his rough
chapel he discovered a smaller cave, about twenty-five feet
long, which he decided would make a perfect burial crypt.
"Anyone coming up and finding a dead hermit has only to
put the body on a board and shove it right into the far end
of the cave, and then wall up the same with stones lying
ready to hand," he wrote. "No coffin, no undertaker or
funeral cortege, no trouble or expense to anyone. Every
thing is wonderfully provided for." And, in the meantime,
he could use the cave to store bags of cement.

In spite of the joy the hermit felt in his anchoritelike dwell
ing, physical discomfort kept him from any unrealistic con
templation of his existence. When the wind was from the
north, the big cave was very cold, and even clad in his habit
and covered with a rug, Fra Jerome found sleep impossible.
His insomnia was increased by the pain in his fingers, which
were raw from the lime and cement and throbbed constantly.
Then, too, the sandals he wore chafed his feet, which de-

Cat Island

141

veloped sores during his long tramps to and from Port Howe.
To make matters worse, he cut his head badly against a piece
of jagged rock while he was readying his altar.

Nevertheless, he was at peace with his world when on
February 2? he celebrated his jubilee Mass in his cave

Jubilee Mass in the Cave

chapeL Standing before the rough altar, with twenty-five
years of the priesthood behind him, he had a mental picture
of how this jubilee Mass might have been celebrated if his
life had taken a different course a picture that he translated
to paper at the first opportunity.

The jubilee Mass was but a momentary interruption of
Fra Jerome s labors, however. He threw himself into the
completion of the hermitage and by the end of March a tiny
four-foot-square kitchen had been started and a small wooden
hut erected. The hermit made himself a table and bunk and,
now that the land crabs were on the move again, took to
sleeping in this "cabin." The walls of his cell rose rapidly,

142 The Hermit of Cat Island

supporting, like the kitchen, a domed roof, and on April 2
he finished off the gateway in the boundary wall with two
circular lettered medallions surmounted by a cross.

What with the dirt and heat Fra Jerome was having an
uncomfortable time of it. He complained of his unkempt
beard, remarking that "The only thing to be said for a beard
out here is that the mosquitoes evidently have the same
opinion of it as I have, and it prevents them from biting my
face/ He disparaged himself as "a disheveled, dirty, horrid-
looking old man, just like a moldy Coptic monk in the streets
of Jerusalem* My skin, face, arms, hands have turned a choc
olate color with the dust and dirt off the building, and the
sweat in the heat mixes it into an indelible grease. No matter
how hard I scrub with soap and water, or bathe in the sea,
I can t get it off." Water was scarce, too and expensive if
one lived on a hilltop as Fra Jerome did and had to pay to
have it brought up by mule. He began to long for a good
downpour to fill his cistern.

But he was not to be discouraged by such trivial disad
vantages. By the Feast of Pentecost his oratory was finished
and the first Mass was said in it three days later. Then heat
and overwork took their toll. Fra Jerome found himself pros
trate from exhaustion and was out of action for a week, un
able to eat or sleep. "I am growing old and worn out," he
confided to his diary. "After a few spasmodic flashes of
energy, I won t be able to stand up to things. ... I am so
utterly tired and exhausted. All I want to do is to lie down
and sleep."

He pulled himself together in spite of his fatigue and by
January had completed the rock steps and the Way of the
Cross which he had began earlier and whose most imposing
station was the twelfth: a twelve-foot crucifix of which the
figure had been cut from a sheet of iron and painted. On
Good Friday of 1941 a large crowd gathered to make the

Cat Island 143

stations and the hermit passed out holy pictures to all his
friends and assistants. Then he transformed the wooden hut
into a guesthouse for his first visitor, Father Callahan from
San Salvador, whom he described as "a tough old- missionary
who has fallen in love with Mount Alvernia."

The natives did not share Fra Jerome s unbounded de
light in his spare quarters. One afternoon, he reports, as he
was working on the construction of the kitchen, "a Negro
woman full of curiosity went inside. I heard her laugh and
say: What sort of a building dis? A young man who was
clearing away the debris on the floor replied: *A prison cell,
I guess! So to the natives it appeared as Carceri, i.e., prisons."

He himself admitted that there were times when the soli
tude frightened him, especially during a gale when the wind
moaned, howled and whistled around the hermitage, sound
ing like human voices outside the window* Again, lying on
his palm-leaf mat within the arched recess on a breathless,
steaming night of July or August, he sometimes suffered from
hallucinations. The sight of a bush or an old tree stump in
the darkness brought alarming visions of an old woman squat
ting down on the other side of the grass plot or a bent old man
coming up the path,

But these were small things. The real discomforts arose
from the construction of the hermitage itself. Fra Jerome
had not foreseen that the rough, unplastered walls would
harbor insects in their many cracks and crevices, and he was
plagued by ants, centipedes, scorpions and hog lice, even
occasionally by a large, black, furry, tarantula spider. More
over, the rough walls absorbed the dampness of the atmos
phere and many a morning when he awoke Fra Jerome s
habit would be almost wet. "The place has quite the old smell
of the Roman catacombs!" he noted. "But as I have built
it, so it must stand and remain just as it is for me, at any
rate.

144 The Hermit of Cat Island

"What a luxury smooth white walls would be, and how I
long for a floor that I could really sweep decently clean! One
luxury I have, and am very thankful for, that is the wire
mosquito-fly netting screens to the windows and doors. With
out these life in midsummer would be almost unsupportable
except for a completely mortified ascetic. The windows have
fly screen inside and wooden shutters outside, but no glass.
When a storm is raging and the wind keeps shifting all
around, one has to shut up every window, so the little place
is in almost complete darkness, to keep the rain out. The
roof domes are quite waterproof, but the moisture seeps
through the porous stonework of the side walls, thick as they
are, and runs down in many places."

One consolation to Fra Jerome s aesthetic sense was that
within a year or so the clifHike declivity in front of the
hermitage became a little garden, sprawling with brilliant
tropical shrubs and flowers of varying shades, predominantly
scarlet and purple. Before long the flowering creepers
climbed over the jagged rocks to the base of the weather-
stained stone walls so that it was hard to say where God s rock
ended and man s masonry began.

The steep, narrow, winding path prohibited any automo
bile or motorcycle from coming near the hermitage. Fra
Jerome maintained that it was a relief to be free from all
the exasperating gadgets of so-called modern progress. He
had no telephone, no radio, no electric light, no water pipes,
no gas-pressure lamps or stove only the companionable
flames of a flickering wood fire in the open stone fireplace
in the little kitchen.

He could look around his hermitage with satisfaction, for
it represented an isolation and an eclectic architectural in
spiration that pleased the demands of his personality. Bits
and corners of the churches he had loved best had found
their way into his dwelling: the barrel vault of rough stones

Cat Island

145

from the ancient priory church of Caldey as well as the hole
in the wall with a little chimney on the gospel side of the altar
where he placed the sanctuary lamp; the stone altar patterned
after the one Fra Jerome himself had built at Caldey; the
wooden stall where he recited his office from those found in
Carthusian cells. And of course the influence of the primitive
Franciscan hermitages in Umbria and Tuscany was evident
in the whole layout of the hermitage in the way it appeared
to have grown out of the natural rock rather than having
been built upon it. The sketches and rough plans in Fra
Jerome s diary indicate the many modifications that eventu
ally resulted in the picturesque and brilliant pastiche that
his hermitage became. There is nothing quite like it in the
world.

Mount Alvernia Hermitage

9.

Island Priest [1940-19433

WHILE the Cat Island building operations were going on, Fra
Jerome found plenty of opportunity for seagoing adventures
in the Roma as he sailed from island to island, making contact
with the unsophisticated islanders and recording his vivid im
pressions of treacherous seas and tropical scenery. He made
plans to spend his first Holy Week in the Bahamas on Long
Island, and on a perfect cloudless morning he and Victor set
out in the boat. Soon the sky turned dark and murky, huge
Atlantic rollers broke over the Roma, sousing the sailors, and
before long they had lost their bearings altogether. It was
the next morning before they sighted land about seventeen
miles away the precipitous cays and forbidding rocks of
Conception Island,

Fra Jerome headed the boat toward the island so that he
could say his Palm Sunday Mass on shore, but the sea was
too rough to make a landing and they were forced to go on
until they reached a barren tip of Long Island. Here Fra
Jerome rigged up his altar among the mangrove bushes and
celebrated Mass; then he and Victor fell famished upon a
strange breakfast of coffee and bananas. They wasted no time
in launching the Roma again, but in spite of expert naviga-

146

On Mount A hernia

The Hermita.se, Cat Island

Laying of the
Foundation Stone of
St. Augustine s Abbey,
Nassau (1946)

Lower left:

St. Francis of Assist,

Old Bight (Interior)

Lower right:

Church of the

Holy Redeemer, Freet

Island Priest 147

tion it was Wednesday evening before they sailed into the
lagoon at Deadman s Cay.

Fia Jerome had always reveled in liturgical ceremonies,
and here in the Bahamas he had ample opportunity to indulge
his enthusiasm. The Benedictines in the islands, as part of
their missionary technique, had encouraged the faithful to
participate actively in public worship; consequently the
people even the children answered the prayers of the Mass
in Latin, directed by a trained leader. Most of them, de
spite the fact that they could not read, had memorized the
prayers and could sing the entire Common of the Mass.

On Easter morning Fra Jerome was backed by his entire
congregation singing the Missa Cantata, preceded by an in
cense-swathed procession around the church during which
the people shook the rafters with the alleluias of the hymns.
"My word! You should hear these people sing," he wrote.
"The whole congregation, not frightened of hearing their
own voices, and so very musical and harmonious. One could
never get Catholics in Australia to sing; only a small select
choir."

The hermit had many confessions to hear at Deadman s
Cay and he had also to take Holy Communion to the sick,
"with full ceremony down the road altar boys, candles and
bell. There was one dear old lady who, although very sick,
got up and dressed and knelt with her black forehead rest
ing on the floor boards." It was easy to feel a deep affection
for these people, and Fra Jerome said good-by to them regret
fully when he and Victor stepped aboard the Roma on the
Tuesday after Easter.

Almost immediately they encountered more stormy wea
ther, and the boat got stuck on a sandbank in Blue Hole Chan
nel, where she ran in for shelter. After three hours she was
afloat again, but the grapnel would not come up, having got

148 The Hermit of Cat Island

fastened under a ledge of rock. "It was only five feet depth of
water," Fra Jerome explained. "I undressed and dived down,
and struggled with the heavy iron under water until my breath
gave out. I made three attempts, and then Victor stripped,
too, and we both dived under and tugged until at last the
grapnel came out with such a jerk that we both fell back
ward into the water, and had to make haste to clamber up on
to the Roma again by the bowsprit stay. Not bad work for an
old rheumatic clergyman of sixty-four!"

Strong winds drove the boat off her course, but eventually
she made Port Howe, where Fra Jerome took a night s rest
in an empty room of the old haunted house of the extinct De-
veaux family. Instead of ghosts, some very noisy rats disturbed
his slumbers. Then, after skirting the coast with a favorable
wind for thirty-four miles, he returned safely to the Bight*

In April 1940 Victor Fergusson returned to Nassau and
Felix Darville, son of the catechist at Deadman s Cay, took his
place as general factotum. A second little wooden hut was
built for him on Mount Alvernia. Fra Jerome soon discovered
that Felix was not nearly so reliable as Victor, and his dis
illusionment was expressed in a general way in his diary.

"The colored people are unfathomable. . . . When I first
came to the West Indies in January 1909, the deep sympathy
I felt for the colored people, from freshly reading Uncle
Tom s Cabin, had made the Negro an object of romantic in
terest to me. I thought more of them than of the poor white
people out here. Returning to the Bahamas, I now find I am
troubled with a feeling of aversion to the Negro. May God
forgive me! Their aspects, manners, speech, intonation . . .
repel me. Yet they are our own brethren, one in Christ dear
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Charity is no natural virtue, but
a gift from God. How selfish and uncharitable I am, alas!
O Lord, give me Charity infuse into my poor cold heart that
love for my fellow men that I don t feel for them. Am I un-

Island Priest 149

social and misanthropic? I want to be a Franciscan! St.
Francis kissed the lepers sores. / shudder to shake hands with
some dirty and deformed black paw held out to me. I am
bitten with the modern notions over carefulness and fastidi
ousness about hygiene, etc."

These sentiments, so unlike the hermit s later attitude to
ward his flock, stemmed partly from a certain homesickness
for Australia that he had not yet conquered. "I feel absolutely
no vocation to work on these islands, nor do I see any real
need," he confessed. "Bishop Bernard wants me to work on
Long Island or Eleuthera rather than on Cat Island ... he
points out in his letters that at the present time he cannot em
bark on opening new missions. He has neither priests nor
money to spare. All I can do is to look after my few poor faith
ful catechumens. I shall be so glad when all building is com
pleted on Mount Alvernia. Then I can send Felix home, lay
up the boat, and be absolutely solitary on my lonely hilltop."

Fra Jerome had good reason for wanting to send Felix home.
Not only was the unfortunate boy subject to epileptic seiz
ures, but he was far too fond of rum and proved more than
once that he was not a safe mate to have on the Roma. By
June Fra Jerome had had enough. He resolved to send Felix
back to his father and persuade Victor to return.

Victor, by this time, had become engaged to one of the Cat
Island girls and both of them wished to become Catholics. He
was pleased at the prospect of once again becoming the her
mit s shipmate. Not only did he take charge of the boat, but
he worked as a builder s laborer, cooked a midday meal for
the priest, and looked after the old pack horse that carried
loads of sand and cement to the summit of Mount Alvernia.
Fra Jerome had indeed found himself an ideal helper.

In the meantime the catechumens at Port Howe had started
to build a church and when it was ready Fra Jerome got per
mission from the Bishop to say the first Mass facing the people

150

The Hermit of Cat Island

so that "in this way I can keep an eye on them and say: Stand/
Sit/ Kneel and so on/* He described the interior o the
church as having a tabernacle on a little altar behind the
celebrant with screen gates kept locked when Mass was not
being celebrated and "curtains drawn across during Mass, as
the priest has his back to the tabernacle and this saves genu
flecting* I carpentered and painted a six-foot-long cross. It
is now hung up in the new church/*

During the summer of 1941, while Fra Jerome was engaged
on the construction of a church at Freetown at the Bight, his
days followed a regular pattern that would have felled an or
dinary man. "I say Mass about 4 A.M. (first streak of dawn in
the sky). Prime, Terce, after which I gather sticks, light fire

CoU 6ab out on UK

Island Priest 151

and pump up water/ He then describes his "one recreation
and luxury," a daily cold tub between Mass and breakfast
out on the smooth green lawn behind the chapel, the hermit
vigorously scrubbing his back to the accompaniment of bird
song. "Even if a solitary snake slithers across the carpet, for
once you feel ready to hail him as your little brother/ "

Then a breakfast of cereal or grapefruit, "a bunch of bread
and cheese" in hand for lunch, and the hermit was off down
the hill to Freetown to begin work at 7:00 A.M. Invariably he
carried with him little packets of corn, coffee beans or sugar
for some poor old woman. He might arrive at the building site
"to find that one of the two masons has got his wall horribly
askew and out of the perpendicular. So I have to settle jeal
ousies between them. At last I get down to my particular job
of building one of the round twenty-four-inch diameter col
umns. Hot sun tempts me to lay down my trowel and say I
can t work any more."

After a swim in the sea just before noon and lunch at the
beach, the old priest would return to his masonry until four
o clock; then the long walk home over the narrow, rocky
path."When I begin the ascent of the hill I am often so dead
beat that I can hardly get along. Dripping with sweat, pass
ing through the gateway, and arriving at the cross paths, I be
gin the stations (very short prayers) as I struggle up the steep
path of loose white stones, then the zigzag flights of rock steps.
Remove hat and genuflect at each station. At the twelfth I
kiss the foot of the big cross. Having arrived at the top, I
make a brief visit to the Blessed Sacrament, kneeling at the
oratory door.

"Then, rounding the tower, where there is always a re
freshing cool breeze, I sit on the steps of the doorway for a few
moments in the shade, drinking in the beauty of the vast
stretch of blue Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes (very rarely) a
ship a Canadian freighter going to Cuba. Very often I take

152 The Hermit of Cat Island

another fresh-water bath (the third bath of the day) before
drawing more water to quench the thirst of the young fruit
trees, hibiscus and bougainvilleas. Then I light a fire, ring the
six-o clock Angelus, drink a lot of tea (sometimes three or
four potfuls), eat some dry bread and a few bananas.

"After this I lie down on my bed about 7. P.M. I wake up
fresh and alert around about midnight, walk out on the lawn
to gaze on the beauty of the moon or the starlight tropical
night. Then on entering the oratory I light the hurricane
lamp and say Matins and Lauds. Having made a meditation,
I return to the cell and sleep again until about four. I make
no attempt to fight against sleep as many of the saints did, be
cause I suppose their particular vocation was to do penance
in that way.

"I can only say: Welcome, Sister Sleep! Holy Sleep, come
to me a sinner. One day, one blessed night, you will come in
festal array to me. You will come to me as Abiding Sleep
Rest Eternal. You will close the door on the repellent vision
of the life of this world, with all its insincerity, stupidity and
cruelty. You will open the door for your pale brother who will
stand on the threshold waiting to be greeted with quiet
joy. . . . O Death, true friend, it is consoling that I cannot
escape you. You will take the Breviary, or the ax and trowel
from my hand, and the working overalls from my body. But
meanwhile I must try to carry on my work cheerfully eat
ing, sleeping, and journeying as a penance. I must not make
a lugubrious burden of the communing of my soul with my
Creator and Redeemer!"

Fra Jerome was growing so weary of these almost daily
walks down the hill to the Bight and up again that he resolved
that once the Freetown church was completed he would
"never, never touch a trowel, ax or modeling tool again." To
walk even a mile through those narrow, winding jungle tracks
over rough, uneven, jagged rocks underfoot was more of a

Island Priest 153

strain than five miles on a good, straight, smooth road. After
rain there were pools of water on the tracks, and one got
soaked from the wet branches of bushes and trees.

But he was delighted at the great crowd that turned out for
the laying of the foundation stone on Laetare Sunday, March
23, 1941. The people filled the air with little cries of admira
tion and pride at the sight of the walls of their church going
up and were sure that it would not be nearly big enough for
all who would want "to join and give in their names to be
come members/*

The following month the hermit s labors were pleasantly
interrupted by a visit from His Royal Highness, the Duke of
Windsor, then Governor of the Bahamas. "I had a chat with
him," wrote Fra Jerome, "walking along the sea-front road.
We discussed Australia and his railway accident in Western
Australia, and went on to speak of horses, dogs and archi
tecture. He is very nice and very well informed on all sub
jects so simple and unaffected. He was dressed in an old
blue yachting suit and looked like the second mate of a yacht.
He was much taken with the distant view of the hermitage
and chapel. *

The Duke and the hermit went on to discuss Fra Jerome s
birthplace and his architectural studies, and the former spoke
of Father Arnold s work on Long Island and of what an ex
pert "doctor, dentist and builder he was/ Fra Jerome was
pleased at the Governor s admiration for St. Paul s Church in
Clarence Town, especially his remark that "it looked so fine
on the hill with its two west towers, just suiting the place.
Tm glad you like it, sir/ I said, I built it thirty years ago
when an Anglican clergyman, just before I left the Bahamas
to become a Catholic/ The Duke then asked me what Order
I belonged to and I told him I was a Franciscan tertiary. He
showed me his three little dogs. A man was exercising them
ashore/ Fra Jerome was evidently delighted by this en-

154 The Hermit of Cat Island

counter with someone with whom he could again talk horses
and dogs*

The hermit had by no means abandoned his voyages in the
Roma during this period. He describes the "absolute confi
dence" he had in Victor, especially when sailing past Devil s
Point against a head wind. The young man would stand on
the bowsprit and call out "Luff a bit ... hard a port , , . keep
off hard a* starboard" until the danger was past. Once sail
ing in deep water the boat swung round and her skipper
shuddered as he saw a brown-green patch with a claw of
jagged rock sticking out above the water less than ten yards
away from them. On another occasion the Roma was escorted
by a school of porpoises whose playfulness was a novelty after
the usual dangers that confronted them,

One stormy voyage to Long Island was undertaken to pick
up Father Cornelius Osendorf who came to spend a week at
the hermitage. Fra Jerome realized that his guest was being
forced to live under conditions too primitive and made up
his mind that he must have a small cloister and guest cell. He
felt that better accommodations were in order for the Bene
dictines who might come to Cat Island after his death, and
when there was no visitor, "the hermit can use the room him
self to get better nights rest." This mitigation of his asceticism
gave him some uneasy moments, but he excused it on the
grounds that his bunk beneath the window sill was so hot
and airless in the summer, so damp in wet weather. Above
all, he was constantly pestered with hog lice. "I love and hold

in high esteem that most Franciscanlike of all the saints

Benedict Joseph Labre," he wrote, "but his own particular
and peculiar vocation is not to be emulated in the toleration
of vermin. I turn to another of the saints St. Bernard of
Clairvaux who says: 1 have loved poverty, but I never loved
filth/ and likewise St. Teresa of Avila."
Suddenly, in October 1941, the full fury of a hurricane hit

Island Priest 155

Mount Alvernia, and for the first time Fra Jerome realized
what damage could be done by the force of the winds. At
dawn on October 5, when the hermit went down to Freetown
to hear confession and celebrate Mass, the sky was overcast.
The men working on the jetty warned him that a storm was
approaching and begged him not to try to return home, but
he refused to listen. As he struggled up the steep slope, the
wind from the north had increased so much that he had to
stoop down and cling to the steps with his hands. When at
last he reached the hermitage, he was nearly blown off his
feet, and it was all he could do to pull the door open and get
inside. But "the hurricane hadn t begun yet. These were
only preliminary puffs." The hermit lit a fire, boiled some
coffee and porridge, and read some of the newspapers received
in his last mail. It was impossible, however, to ignore the ele
mental upheaval.

"The roar of the wind outside was now terrific. I crawled
through the low hatchway in the back of the vestment press
into the oratory, to pray for the poor people below. I knew
their badly built houses couldn t stand this long. After two
hours came a lull this was the center of the hurricane pass
ing over The first blow had come from the northeast, but

as the cyclone passed over us in a northwesterly direction, we
now got a battering from the opposite circumference of the
moving circle from the southwest.

"The second act was far worse than the first. When the ter
rible roar died away and the swirling mists of rain and sea
water cleared away, I looked down on a scene of desolation.
From a fresh, verdant green the face of the land was turned to
a dull brown, as if it had been burned with fire. Big trees lay
flat; bushes stripped bare of their leaves. Buildings roofless
or nonexistent. My church roof had gone and only gaunt,
lagged arches stood out, the gables on them torn off with the
shaking. Mount Alvernia, exposed more than any other place

156 The Hermit of Cat Island

to the full blast of the hurricane, carried its little buildings
intact, but the low wooden (guesthouse) cabin was slewed
right round on its foundations from northeast to east. Even
more amazing that the big wooden crucifix on the Way of the
Cross stood unharmed."

When at last Fra Jerome was able to descend the hill to
Freetown, he found that a number of people had taken refuge
in the sacristy of the church after their houses had been laid
low. Several vessels had been caught in the gale and were
never seen again, while others had had narrow escapes and
were thrown up onto the land. As for the Roma, she capsized,
sank and remained safely protected under water from the
violence of the storm. All the natives declared excitedly that
this was the worst hurricane within living memory that had
ever struck Cat Island even though it lasted only four hours.
The force of the wind had been more than two hundred miles
an hour.

Of the other islands San Salvador was the only one that had
been badly hit. There were very few people on that island
who had not lost almost all their possessions, yet there was no
moaning and groaning, but only, "Tank de good Lord he
spared life; if it had come in the night, lots would have been
killed." The church was a sad ruin with all the east wall torn
down and broken masonry everywhere, but the damage done
was nothing compared with the havoc wrought in the Angli
can and Baptist chapels. Bishop Bernard lost no time coming
to the relief of the people with a generous supply of corn,
sugar, flour and clothing. The government sent over a ship
load of lumber, shingles and cement for rebuilding the
houses. So there was plenty of work and pay and food for
some four months afterward. The local sloops and other sail
boats could not be back and off fast enough with their piled-
up cargoes.

"Well! That is my first hurricane," wrote Fra Jerome. "I

Island Priest 157

don t know but that we might get another this month; some
times another follows on after only a short interval. Isn t
there some old saying: Troubles or is it bears walk in
pairs? The cheerfulness, patience, fortitude and resignation
of the people are quite wonderful. No complaints, but grati
tude to God that it was not worse and that He took care of
them through all the terror."

The impression made by the hurricane on the local re
ligious attitude was amusingly brought home to Fra Jerome
by an old black woman, Henrietta, one of his stanchest
parishioners. She was an invalid and lived with her sister in
a little one-room house with a palm-thatched roof, but her
missionary efforts extended to her neighbors.

"I found Henrietta sitting on a tree trunk, holding forth
to a little crowd," Fra Jerome records. "So I greeted them
and sat down on a rock, while Henrietta went on with her
sermon. It s beautiful, de Karthlic Church. I wish I d been
a Karthlic since I was five years old. It s all those years wasted,
wasted. Why did de Lord send the hurricane to knock all de
people s houses down? It s cos of their wicked goings-on, I
tell yer. De Lord, He punish them, but He spare my poor old
house, cos I all day serve de Lord in it and pray. Dese other
so<all churches let you do what you like, but de Karthlic
Church is strict, very strict, an you got to keep de rules. Jesus
Christ was a Roman Karthlic. I can report her little sermon
accurately, and without any embellishment, because I jotted
her words down as soon as I got home.

"At the midnight Mass the first one in the new church
during the Adeste Fideles, my eye happened to fall on Hen
rietta in a front bench, and her poor old black face was really
transfigured something extraordinary and beautiful in it.
I am not sensible generally of seeing the people at all, but I
suppose it was just after the Priest s Communion, and I was
looking to see if those for Holy Communion were making a

158 The Hermit of Cat Island

move up to the altar rails, or I had to sign to the altar boy to
tell them. The zealous server had rung his little bell so many
extra times in fact, almost every time I genuflected so the
people could hardly tell from the bell which was the Domine,
non sum dignus"

That midnight Mass of Christmas 1941 seems to have given
Fra Jerome great happiness. Of baptized Catholics there were
still only twenty-two, but all received Holy Communion. On
the morning of Christmas Eve he had baptized a dozen elderly
catechumens, all of whom had attended Sunday Mass regu
larly for a year. He was never tired of writing about the won
derful singing, and the people made good use of the West
minster Hymnals sent out from England. Moreover, they had
grown quite accustomed to afternoon Vespers in English,
and reveled in chanting the Psalms, even more so the Litany
of Loreto at Benediction, where they responded lustily Ora
pro nobis to every invocation.

In February 1942 Father Leonard Hagarty, O.S.B., gave a
fortnight s mission at Freetown. Fra Jerome wrote in his
diary: "He was as good as any Redemptorist whole-time mis-
sioner I ever heard in Australia. The people turned up well,
and just loved Father Leonard whose very solid and thorough
instructions were so easy to understand; bright and homely,
too/* Father Leonard spent three days at the hermitage, and
shortly thereafter Father Frederic Frey, O.S.B., came from
Nassau for a week s rest and change.

Lent at Freetown, with the stations of the cross on Wednes
day, Saturday and Sunday evenings, was a strenuous time for
Fra Jerome. He wrote that the people loved these services
when they were carried out after dark by the light of hurri
cane lamps only. "There are always loud groans and sighs.
Between times I saw an old woman talking aloud to herself.
She went up to the eleventh station, and hit the executioners

Island Priest 159

in the picture, as the only way to show what she felt about
them!"

Lenten fare for the hermit consisted of his own specialty:
a bread that he baked from a mixture of whole-wheat flour
combined with the locally grown Indian corn flour to which
he added Quaker Oats or Kellogg s Corn Flakes and a dash of
brown sugar and baking powder, Although he described him
self as "a very accomplished baker," he also admitted that
often, having placed his loaf in the Dutch oven, he would go
off to write a letter and be recalled to the business at hand
only by the smell of burning. In spite of what he ruefully de
scribed as a "quarter inch of charcoal biscuit on top and bot
tom," Fra Jerome insisted that it was "very nourishing bread
and needs no butter or marmalade," its only drawbacks being
that "sometimes one has to cut it with a hatchet*"

Fra Jerome, like the other clergymen of the Bahamas, went
to Nassau in July for the annual priests retreat. There among
his Benedictine friends he enjoyed the comparative luxuries
of sitting down to prepared meals, drinking ice water, and
"no washing up afterwards." He was introduced to turtle
"meat" pies and wrote that he was having "quite a dissipated
time . . . going out to dinner with the local naval boss, Com
mander Langton-Jones . . . who is in charge of all the light
houses in the Bahamas." The two men found many common
interests, particularly dogs and seascapes, and the hermit was
delighted to discover that the commander was familiar with
all the Australian ports. The naval officer told Fra Jerome of
a book he was writing about the Bahama lighthouses and the
many stories of pirates in Bahamian waters, and the old her
mit sat fascinated long past his normal hour for retiring.

Fra Jerome s chief concern at this time was ridding himself
finally and forever of all his worldly possessions. He had sold
out the last of his investments and handed over the proceeds
to the Vicar Apostolic of the Bahamas; the Hermitage had

160 The Hermit of Cat Island

been made the absolute property of the Benedictines. All that
remained was an annuity of one hundred and twenty pounds
which he was unable to dispose of, as the capital belonged to
certain trustees. He consoled himself by remembering that
St. Francis had allowed tertiaries to retain a few necessary
possessions. Nevertheless, he still had doubts. "What sort of
a man of Gospel poverty is he who has a banking account
even if it only stands at one pound, seventeen shillings, and is
offset by a bill of one pound, two shillings, threepence owing
for groceries? I have two pairs of sandals, my girdle and three
habits, whereas it should only be one. Also I have a few
cotton shirts and pajamas, but this year I have got accustomed
to wearing my habit only without any shirt, with only white
cotton drawers. Within these last three years since leaving
Australia I have lightened my ship of three thousand pounds.
Now at last I am really a poor man."

Fra Jerome forgot that the Roma was another of his pos
sessions from which he could not part, because she was es
sential to his mission work. Writing in October 1942, he says,
"Victor has just brought back the Roma to her customary
smartness hull spotless snow-white, with bright red and
blue lines, and red copper paint below the water line.

" I love her as I do my own wife/ says Victor! Fortunately
his wife does not need painting like the white ladies do! So
a smart yellow cotton dress set off with scarlet bows is as good
for her as a new mainsail is for the boat. It makes an artistic
contrast with her chocolate-colored skin. A wide-brimmed
palm-leaf hat is the topsail."

Victor, who could afford to buy new frocks and hats for his
wife, was better off than most of the island folk in 1942.
World War II had made its mark even in these remote parts.
German submarines had sunk several vessels in Bahamian
waters. The cost of living rose steadily, and there was little or
no work for the people on the out islands. Many were on the

Island Priest 161

verge of starvation. The supply of fish had run short; summer
crops had failed; there were no bananas, plantains or other
fruits, no work, and therefore no money to buy corn or flour.
Families were forced to feed on roast land crabs supplemented
by beans or cowpeas.

Fra Jerome wrote home that he had seen young girls
dressed only in old corn sacks and that even these were rare,
hard to get and valuable. "It is no fault of the people they
are not lazy and shiftless as some travelers say. Oh, they can
live on very little; they are used to it! What I feel is that it is
high time that they got used to a higher standard of living;
why should these poor creatures never have anything better?"

Haunted by the dire poverty and misery on Cat Island, the
hermit resolved to add to his mortifications and penances.
He limited himself to one full meal daily consisting usually
of macaroni cooked with cheese, onion and tomato. But he
wrote, "I still feel I fare much too well when I think of some
of my poor people below the hill, and sumptuously as com
pared with the meager diet of that mortified hermit, Charles
de Foucauld, who took his meals on the ground without even
a plate and only dipping his spoon into the saucepan or pot.
Neither did the first Capuchin hermits have tables; they took
their food on the floor no beds, no tables. In these degener
ate days we shy at any sort of mortification. We are too
pampered and fastidious."

As a result he also decided to cut down his supper to "tea
and bread with perhaps some peanut butter or marmalade;
or just a bowl of hot soup and some bread; or oatmeal por
ridge, or hominy with a little sugar and milk." But these
ideas are blue-penciled out and over them in red is written:
"Cut out supper."

The natives often climbed the steep slopes of Mount
Alvernia, knowing that he or she would have only to ask and
be given whatever the hermit could spare. One day a tired-

162 The Hermit of Cat Island

looking old granny came laboring up the hill and sat down on
a rock outside the chapel door, quite exhausted with the
climb. "Good mornin*, Farder, good mornin ," she said.

"Well, Uterpe, what has brought you up all this long way?"
asked Fra Jerome.

"Farder, I did want to speak to you. Farder, I se ashamed to
ask you but you did tell us if things was bad and we had
nothing, to come to you, and I got some sisal on the boat to
send to Nassau to get me some flour, but got nothing now
left in the house."

"What did you have for breakfast, Uterpe?"

"Farder, I didn t have nothin to have not a bite." So
Fra Jerome mixed milk with the coffee in the pot, adding
plenty of sugar, and gave old Uterpe a chunk of bread and
two bananas to eat right away. Then he put some flour in a
paper bag and some tobacco leaf, and wrote an order on the
storekeeper for half a bushel of corn for the old lady, not
forgetting to add lard and sugar. She departed happy, and full
of gratitude-
Then, finding himself alone, the hermit went into the ora
tory to get on with his Office, but soon there was another
"Mornin , Farder, is you dere?" and this visitor a poor man
wanted medicine.

"What for? What s the matter with you?"

"Headache and fever can t sleep."

Fra Jerome had to part with some of the few quinine pills
and aspirin tablets left him. Now perhaps he would be able
to proceed with his prayers. But no, looking down from the
chapel door, he noticed a big straw hat bobbing about among
the bushes this time a girl. Having arrived at the top of the
hill, she said she wanted to sell some eggs.

"How many have you got there, Esther May?"

"Five, Farder."

He gave her a sixpence, and sympathized with her on the

Island Priest 163

loss of a second baby, but warned her to "keep away from the
men till you can get a good young man for a husband and get
married. These eighteen months past you ve been very faith
ful in coming to Mass, and I d like to baptize you, but I can t
do so until you ve changed your life/

So young Esther May was dismissed, and departed down the
hill with another sixpence. Once again the hermit made a
fresh start on his interrupted Office, but he did not get much
farther than a psalm or two. There was another call round
the other side by the kitchen door:

"Farder, Farder, are you in? . . ."

Many of Fra Jerome s friends in England and Australia
pictured him living in complete solitude like an anchorite
with all his days spent in prayer and contemplation, but more
often than not he was preoccupied with such incidents as
these. It was seldom that a day passed when he did not get at
least one visitor. He wrote: "One after another they find
their way up the hill to see the old hermit. It s little I do. I
wish I could do more, dear Lord. How busy Charles de
Foucauld used to be, and what multitudes he received every
day and helped at his hermitage in the Sahara."

In August 1942 a little church dedicated to St. John the
Baptist was opened at Baintown, Gat Island, and Fra Jerome
took care of this church as well as those in nearby settlements.
The Roma was in full service and it is easy to picture the
skipper and his mate launching the dinghy and rowing out
to the boat lying at anchor off The Bight. Then, after a few
hours sleep they up-anchor in the starlight, run out under
the jib, and anchor again outside the bar.

"At dawn we are off again full sail and a free wind and

all clear ahead across the bay Suddenly there is a terrible

grinding noise and we heel over, pounding up and down on a
hidden outcrop of rock. We let down sails at once, and Victor
jumps overboard in his clothes and, standing up to his neck

164 The Hermit of Cat Island

in the sea, tries to shove the Roma s bow round toward the
deeper water, and I shove with the long sweep. . , . Deo
gratias! A bigger wave heaves us off into the deep water.
Fortunately the Roma is well and strongly built and escaped

with no more than springing a leak As we got off the rock

and Victor climbed on board his legs were badly cut by the
sharp rock and bleeding profusely. Fortunately I had a tin of
carbolic salve ointment on board. ... It was only St. Nicholas
and our Guardian Angels that brought us safe back to port."

These autumn voyages brought concrete results as far as
Fra Jerome s missionary endeavors were concerned. By the
end of October he had eighty-nine converts and more were
under instruction. But the hermit had his hands full with the
emotional Bahamians. He wrote that "here you have to get
back to the discipline of the primitive Church. You have to
keep drumming into them that religion is not a coat of white
wash but a new life." He was encouraged, however, by the
remark of the commissioner of the islands who told him that
he had noticed a remarkable difference in the Freetown peo
ple since Fra Jerome had opened the church there. Lawsuits
and court cases had diminished considerably which may
have been because Fra Jerome himself acted as judge in quite
a few cases. He wrote down the story of one husband-wife
fracas that he settled amicably.

"A fortnight ago a young woman whom I had married in
June last year, Rosalie, arrived panting and sweating early
one morning at the hermitage. Farder, I don t know what to
do me and Harold was just havin* a little fun togeder just
play like we often does, and then I go into the house and take
up the knife to peel an onion, and the constable he come in
the door and say, "Give me dat knife," an he wrench it out of
my hand, an take it to put me in court before the chief (the
local name for the commissioner).

" Well, I replied, why did he do that?

Island Priest 165

" I don t know, Farder, I was only peeling the onion.

"I told her to go home and send her husband up to see me.
In an hour s time Harold appeared and repeated exactly what
his wife had said.

"So I went down to the village and questioned the people
in all the nearby houses to find out the true facts. It proved
to have been a nasty fight husband and wife rolling on the
ground, trying to strangle each other! Til kill you, says
Harold. Getting up, Rosalie runs into the house and fetches
the big sisal knife and makes a pass at Harold in the back.
Then the constable arrives, having been summoned by Har
old s mother. He just held out his hand quickly, and said:
Give me the knife.

"I knew it might go hard for the poor girl perhaps six
months imprisonment so I talked to the couple outside,
and gave them a dressing down for telling me such lies, and
that it was no good my trying to help them unless they told
the truth and nothing but the truth, otherwise the magistrate
would get cross with the contradictions and prevarications,
and, having to cross-examine so many witnesses, it was sure
to end with imprisonment.

"The next day was Sunday and I preached about the Bible
the Church s book, and with what reverence she treated the
Word of God, and the very book itself, for example, the cere
monies (which some of them had seen in Nassau) at a High
Mass incense, lights, etc., at the reading of the Gospel. And
when you were received into the Church you professed your
belief, saying, "having before me the Holy Gospels which I
touch with my hand," and some of you may have to go into
court and lay your hands on the Bible, saying: "I swear by
Almighty God to tell the Truth, the whole Truth, and noth
ing but the Truth." And you that are Catholics now, do you
mean to tell me you will dare to do as you used to do before
to tell the magistrate a pack of lies?

166 The Hermit of Cat Island

"Then I enlarged on why God did not strike a person dead
at once, and on liars having their part in the lake of fire and
brimstone, etc., etc. a very necessary sort of sermon, because
perjury just to back up friends, or clear yourself, is so preva
lent and so little thought of.

"That same Sunday evening I walked along to the residency
and had a friendly talk with the commissioner. The case was
heard in the middle of the week. The delinquents owned up
to all the constable charged them with. The great cloud of
witnesses waiting below in the basement, not one of them had
to be called. The commissioner was well pleased with being
able to settle the case so easily, and, after a good lecture,
merely bound over Harold and Rosalie to keep the peace. On
the following Saturday the pair came to confession, and knelt
side by side at the altar rail next morning. So far, they have
lived happily together again!"

This long story will set at rest any notion that Fra Jerome s
life on Gat Island resembled that of St. John the Evangelist
on the Isle of Patmos. If he ever fell into trances or had
ecstasies he took good care never to mention them in his
letters. He was no Angela of Foligno or Margaret of Cortona.
Judging from his correspondence, Fra Jerome would have
been horrified if anybody had called him a mystic. God, as
visible in His creation, interested him far more than the
abstract speculations of mystical theologians. All that mat
tered to him was that "the Word was made flesh, and came to
dwell among us." On Gat Island, in the beauties of the sky
and the sea, and above all in the people, Fra Jerome almost
always seems to have "had sight of God s glory, glory such as
belongs to the Father s only-begotten Son, full of grace and
truth." How often did he not refer to the "beautiful gifts of
God," saying that God lets us have lovely things to cheer us
on our way and to be a medium of education for us?

But he was convinced of the efficacy of the contemplative

Island Pnest 167

orders, and as World War II went on he began to feel that,
once peace was restored, there was little hope that people
would be brought back to God in any other way than through
the growth and expansion of the Benedictines, Cistercians,
Carmelites and Poor Clares and through the transformation
of the Franciscan Third Order, "from a pious confraternity
back to the original idea of a Catholic communist society of
penance, voluntary poverty, and social welfare."

"I think," he wrote, "that many returned soldiers, sailors
and airmen, after all the privations and horrors of this war
and the futility of the world wrestling for economic domina
tion and influence, may yet fly for peace and rest to such
Benedictine communities of the primitive observance, which
try to support themselves by agriculture or other forms of
manual labor. But they must be housed in an austerely plain
monastery, with the oratory mentioned in the Rule of St.
Benedict, not the great sumptuous and costly medieval abbey
church. There must be no publicity or advertisement no
encirclement of the monastery with tea gardens or boarding-
houses for sight-seers and trippers. In an abbey of the Cluniac
type, the visitors would gaze open-mouthed at the gorgeous
carvings and paintings of God and His saints look at the
pictures and move on. In an abbey of the Cistercian kind
they will notice more the life of the monks, and go away won
dering why!"

The famous hermitage of the Garceri, visited by almost ev
ery pious pilgrim staying in Assisi, was always at the back of
Fra Jerome s mind. And if anybody had asked this voluntary
"prisoner" on Cat Island what was the hardest thing he had to
endure, there can be little doubt that he would have replied
that it was not having a dog as his companion.

In September 1942, three years and four months after his
heart had nearly been broken on parting with his fox terrier,
Dominie, he was still thinking of his "dearest cobber" and re-

168 The Hermit of Cat Island

membered clearly this "scruffy black and white fox terrier
tail up and head cocked on one side, with bright eyes" re
garding her master. When Fra Jerome looked at a treasured
photo of Dominie he admitted that the tears came into his
eyes and a choking lump into his throat.

Mrs. Roberts, the wife of the farmer who had adopted
Dominie, wrote him that the dog "had kept up a brave ex
terior," but after a whole year had passed and she could not
hear again the voice she loved, the waiting was too long for
her, and one morning Mrs. Roberts found Dominie curled up
dead in her basket. She had passed peacefully in her sleep
with no sign of any struggle, a fitting end for such a faithful
heart.

Snakes, however, were put into a different category from
dogs. Fra Jerome had no wish that these dumb creatures
should be slithering around him as he passed the Golden
Gate. In November 1942 he wrote that he had been engaged
in "a proper snake week* around the hermitage, and had
killed three out of four. One dropped from the porch roof,
with a big frog in its mouth that was squarking loudly." The
hermit seized his machete and chopped the snake s head off,
and the frog jumped free. "Well! little fellow," I said, "you ve
had a narrow escape," whereupon the frog jumped flop, right
onto my shoulder. Brother Frog and Brother Lizard are al
ways good friends, but a snake is the very devil!"

A few days later Fra Jerome was doing some jobs around
his little guest cabin, in preparation for the expected visit of
Fra Nicholas Kremer, when, coming swiftly through the long
grass, and heading straight for the cabin, he beheld the big
gest snake he had ever met outside a zoological garden. He
struck it with all his strength, but the cutlass, though sharp-
edged, made no impression on its tough, leathery skin. He
hit the reptile again and again. Then it slithered half under
the floor of the cabin. Had it died there, the stench would

Island Priest

169

have been unbearable for weeks. So Fra Jerome seized the
snake by the tail, and pulled it out with all his might. Twice
his hold slipped, but at last he hauled it out. Then the snake
turned on its captor, who just managed to get a grip on its

The Snake Hunt

neck. It was almost seven feet long and as thick as a human
forearm. Some of the natives who saw the dead snake the fol
lowing day reckoned it to be the biggest ever found on Cat
Island.

The incident provoked some other and sinister "snake
yarns" outside the church after Mass on Sunday. One woman
who had left her two little children under a tree while she was
working in her plantation found that a snake had coiled
round one of them and killed the infant.

The local attitude toward snakes was closely bound up with
superstition. "Talking of snakes," Fra Jerome wrote, "the
terror of Obeah still remains with some of the people. Last
Sunday an old, old woman came to me after Mass for some
medicine for her feet very swollen and cracked. I gave her

170 The Hermit of Cat Island

some epsom salts to bathe them in hot water with some heal
ing ointment. I know why they come so/ she said, it s the
Black Heart of the Seven Sisters. My brother read it in a
book he found in a sailboat from Haiti, and he gets earth out
of the graves in the cemetery and spreads it at night on my
path between my house and kitchen. It s that what cracks my
feet; so I m a cripple now and can hardly walk/ So all I could
do was to laugh, and teU the old lady that it was all silly non
sense and superstition. She and her brother Simon keep up
a perpetual feud."

On January 14, 1943, Fra Jerome received a letter from Dr.
Gummer, the new Bishop of Geraldton, informing him that
he was still regarded as a priest of that diocese. It pleased him
that the Bishop had retained his name as one of the "con-
suitors," without interfering with his extended leave of
absence from Australia. Dr. Gummer wrote: "Your leave
will not be terminated by me. Should you wish to return at
any time, you will be most welcome. You gave of your best to
the diocese, and you have left behind an honored name here,
and an example for the young priests to follow."

But the old hermit, far from having any desire to return to
Australia, felt that he ought to do far more penance, and con
fessed that, after a visit from Father Brendan, he "fell to more
relaxation again," that is, he moved into the little guest
dormitory on his new cloister. Here he had been sleeping in
pajamas between sheets with two pillows. But he admits that
he tossed about most nights and got very little sleep. Even
worse, the sand flies got in under the sheets and bit him!
" The sergeants of the Lord come in to punish me thus," he
wrote. Determined to renew his efforts, he gave his rock bunk
in the cell a thorough washing with a strong solution of per
manganate of potash, and brushed the walls and soaked the
corners. This rid him of the hog lice, and once more the
hermit slept on the straw mat in his habit and cord.

Island Priest 171

But even this hard bed was not penance enough for him.
Ever since he had cleaned out the small cave for a "burial
crypt" Fra Jerome had intended to sleep there, but the longer
he deferred doing so, the less he was inclined to relish the
idea. Now, however, he resolved to go through with this
mortification. On February 12 he peered into the narrow, ir
regular chamber at the far end of the cave and it looked
repulsive. A snake slithered into a side pocket of the rock;
land crabs scuttled over the ground. With sudden resolution
Fra Jerome lit a fire inside the cave that blazed up so high
that to him, watching through the barred door, it looked like
"the gates of Purgatory." When the leaping flames had died
down to embers, the hermit tossed a few chips of paraffin onto
the bed of glowing coals and immediately the cave was filled
with a thick smoke that killed the mosquitoes and sand
flies.

By midnight the air in the cave was clear of smoke and Fra
Jerome began his preparations for sleeping within. He carried
an armful of hay to the far end of the cave and crawling on
his hands and knees arranged it as a bed. With his hatchet he
chipped off some protruding knobs of rock from the floor, and
filled up a hollow with loose, flat rocks before spreading a
palm mat over the dried grass. He dispensed with a pillow, as
the floor sloped downward and his head was higher than his
feet.

"I knelt down," he wrote, "and said my short Litany of the
Hermits and then lay down, first on my back with arms out
straight as I hope I may be laid when dead in forma crucis.
Then I turned the hurricane lamp to a faint glimmer. I kept
my hood drawn over my head to keep Varmints out of my
hair. I recited the Compline prayer. . . . When the time comes
and my soul is in Purgatory (if my body is walled in here),
worms and maggots will be ceaselessly at work on it until the
bare white bones lie in the form of the cross. Perhaps a snake

172 The Hermit of Cat Island

will wriggle through the empty eye sockets of the skull, and
crabs, no longer dreaded, walk under the ribs."

This somewhat morbid picture is mitigated by Fra Je
rome s further meditation on the happiness he drew from
sleeping directly under the altar in the cave above, and by the
description of his dream of awakening in the Bishop s house
in Geraldton to the sound of the cook going about preparing
breakfast.

"Then I really wake up and see the rough vault of rock
some eighteen inches above my head. I draw up my knees and
they hit the ceiling. But how warm and comfortable it is here.
I feel grand, and the sore throat is really much better. I am
lying on my left side and a faint glow comes from the lamp on
the other side. I lie and doze a little longer and then turn up
the lamp. I crawl down the cave on hands and knees. The
door has swung to with the wind and oiltside it is raining.
Climbing up to the oratory, I see the first faint glow of dawn
in the sky. Well! One s grave is a very snug and comfortable
place to sleep in!"

Perhaps the severities that Fra Jerome inflicted upon him
self contributed to a certain "nerviness" that is apparent in
some of his diary entries. He remarks that the devil had been
piling up artfully a mountain of petty annoyances, trifling,
but enough to upset his equanimity. The prior at Nassau had
not responded to his plea for more candles; there had been no
acknowledgment of a check he had sent to another Benedic
tine to defray the expenses of a blind girl; another monk had
wired that he would arrive that evening "like a thunderbolt
when I am short of groceries and other supplies no clean
sheets ready or anything."

He grumbles on that just when he has arranged a trip to
Long Island "comes a vague communication from the Bishop
that he hopes to visit the Bight shortly/ He doesn t say how
plane, private boat, or mail steamer; if the latter, will it

Island Priest 173

be for a few hours stay over or a week until the mail boat
returns?" He was disturbed that some of his flock were leav
ing to get work in Florida; that feuds were cropping up
among his people. But that these were just passing irritations
is clearly indicated when he writes, "First hand goes to the
devil, but the second to me. For I have a most wholesome
lesson in learning how far I am from religious detachment
and humility/

One of the things that helped the hermit forget about
minor annoyances was a new-found interest in gardening. He
had planted orderly rows of cabbages, carrots and turnips as
well as many local varieties of vegetables and fruits, and care
fully watered and tended them. His cabbages gave him par
ticular delight their extraordinary sweetness, he was sure,
came from the tropical sunshine. He toyed, too, with the idea
of keeping goats but decided it would be too much bother
and contented himself with urging his people to drink goats
milk. They obviously regarded this as an eccentric notion.
As one woman put it, "I want real milk not that dirty stuff
from a dirty cow or goat, but proper milk in a tin."

Fra Jerome accepted this rebuff with secret amusement and
turned his attention to more important matters such as the
baptism of Victor s first-born, a handsome boy whom they
named Paschal. Holy Week was upon him again. Fra Jerome
had decided to perform the Maundy because "it s all there in
the missal so I reckon it is meant to be carried out," and there
was wholehearted congregational enthusiasm when the her
mit washed twelve pairs of black feet on Holy Thursday.

A less liturgical project was a plan for a communal corn
bin "plastered inside and out with a strong waterproofed
mixture of cement. Padlocked manhole on top of concrete
roof, thus sealed against weevils." The hermit urged the adop
tion of this upon the government authorities along with
"public toilets," which he claimed were urgently needed in

174 The Hermit of Cat Island

Freetown. There was no danger of Fra Jerome becoming a
"poseur and dilettante" with such practical problems con
stantly engrossing him.

He was engrossed, too, by the books and magazines that
arrived on the mail boat, and commented critically on his
reading. Of The Song of Bernadette, which he devoured in
three days, he remarked that it "has made Lourdes live for
me, and has given me a deep devotion and love for Bernadette
Soubirous." The Family That Overtook Christ he dismissed
as "melodrama exaggerated and strained in style/ But what
appealed most strongly to him was a life of the Carthusian
Dom Edmund Gurdon which in 1943 was appearing in the
Prinknash Abbey magazine Pax.

Dom Edmund had written in his later years, "My days here
are flowing by very peacefully. I am most of the day in my
cell in utter solitude, all alone with God and my thoughts and
my rich store of memories of the past. I pray a great deal more
than I have ever done before. I do also a certain amount of
manual work. Time never lags with me, nor has it ever done
so. I have never in all my life known what ennui is. I find my
days always too short. My life is indeed monotonous, but its
monotony is only exterior."

Fra Jerome carefully copied these words into his diary and
added, "I could make Dom Edmund s words my own."

10.

Soliloquies of a Solitary [1948]

LONG before Fra Jerome set foot on Cat Island he had been
trying to clarify his ideas on the eremitical life: first, through
his reading; later, through jotting down in his diary thoughts
that had occurred to him. He was, of course, strongly influ
enced by the Franciscan eremitical ideal, but in accord with
the eclecticism that had shown itself so strongly in his archi
tectural exploits, his view of the hermit s life was drawn
from many sources.

Just what the composite was is clearly revealed in a series
of articles called Soliloquies of a Solitary, which first ap
peared in Tax in 1943, and which in 1952 was published in
book form, with additional material, and a dozen illustra
tions by the author, by the Dublin Capuchins. Fra Jerome,
with a cloudy idea of keeping his identity a secret, had signed
the original articles "Troglodyte," but his references to an
"island hermitage" gave a strong clue to the authorship of
the Soliloquies.

Fra Jerome introduced his little work with a bow to
Cardinal Newman, who had written, "Solitude is to be sought
not because of the relief from those who are not there, but for
His sake Who is." This, Fra Jerome felt, summed up perfectly
the raison d etre for the eremitical life; its idealistic appeal/

175

176 The Hermit of Cat Island

he thought, had been expressed in Richard Rolle s words,
"The hermit s life is great if it be greatly led."

Then in his vigorous style Fra Jerome went on to discuss
the meaning of the solitary life as he saw it. " A modern
hermit! What a lovely romantic life! some will say; or, How
I envy him being free from all worries and responsibilities ;
Such a calm and untroubled way ; A shirking of real life, I
call it, a lazy, vegetating existence, another will exclaim.
They all miss the mark, understanding very little about it.
The life of a solitary is, of course, that of a contemplative,
and I write of it here as colored by the Franciscan outlook.
I did not choose or plan or will to be a contemplative, but
being a priest it was because I was not the man of prayer I
ought to have been that, to save my soul, God in His mercy
called me to leave the world. With real diffidence and, I
hope, a true humility I make a record of my experiences as
a hermit-tertiary of St. Francis . . . that they may perhaps be
of some encouragement or consolation to a like-minded
pilgrim; but let him not look to read any high matters herein,
for my hermit feet have as yet tramped but on the Purgative
Way."

Then for the like-minded pilgrim" Fra Jerome traced the
steps that led him to become a hermit, telling of his first
glimpse of Cat Island and of his "Holy Mountain," and
gave a detailed and highly romantic description of his hill
top. "The great clouds sailing overhead, painting the land
scape with beautiful shadows athwart its sunshine" he used
as a symbol of the heavy black storm clouds that blotted out
the sunlight from the soul of even a secluded hermit.

He also confessed to the pull of a warmer, more tempera
mentally attractive existence such as he had experienced in
Australia.

"I pictured the spacious, comfortable presbytery that I
left, with its easy chairs and well-stocked bookshelves; the
kind nuns and the laughing school children; the shouting

Soliloquies of a Solitary 177

boys at football; my car spinning along those long, smooth
country roads of Western Australia. Sunday with the bells
swinging in the church tower and the mellow pipe oigan
throbbing to Missa de Angelis, while at the altar the smoke
of the incense curls above my head, spreading a bluish haze
in the cupola of the dome. We never realize the full extent
of our happiness in some particular place until after we have
left it/

But, Fra Jerome pointed out, it is not by indulging in
memories of this kind that a vocation is fulfilled, but by fol
lowing the way of life to which God calls us. And with regard
to his own particular vocation he pictured his past life as
nothing "just a little noisy bubbling over of the kettle with
a show of spouting steam; so much of self mixed up with it
all self-esteem, self-satisfaction, self-delusion." Then the
agonized self-question: "Why has our Lord touched me?
Why couldn t He leave me alone?" Thus he revealed his
struggle, his own dark night of the soul in which he was
overwhelmed with the thought that he was suffering from a
vain delusion that he had made the biggest mistake of his
life when he left Australia. He went on to tell, however, of
the resolution of this conflict when at last his vocation was
confirmed by his spiritual director s counsel and encourage
ment.

Fra Jerome s discussion of the eremitical life owes much
to The Quest of Solitude which, before he gave up his mis-
sioner s role in Australia, gave him a general idea of how
Christian hermits lived from the earliest periods of Church
history up to modern times. This idea he incorporated into
his Soliloquies with the understanding that antiquity and
modernity must be reconciled and combined, and he ex
plained that he had tried to build a "hermitage of today
which fits in with the original standard because it has no
modern ameliorations or characteristics."

The hermit went on to lay bare his reasons for believing

178 The Hermit of Cat Island

so strongly in the solitary life. He pointed out that birds
and wild creatures have their homes, monks their monas
teries and individual cells, and itinerant friars their rude
mountain hermitages to retire within. He stressed that Jesus,
after He left Nazareth, had no home of His own; that many
of the saints followed their Master in utter homelessness.
Poverty as laid down in the Gospel must be the rule in order
to counteract the spirit of acquisitiveness of which money
is the symbol. For acquisitiveness is the soul of evil, not only
in the individual but in corporate bodies and nations.

"Poverty, Solitude, Penance that is the vocation of a
Franciscan hermit. I feel that if I respond faithfully to such
a call, and live the life God shows me, I may bear fruit; but
if I am to undertake any sort of missionary work, God will
make it clear to me: I am not to seek it, but to wait for it to
come to me. In my old age I would like rest and quietness
to prepare for death, but Domine, si adhuc tuo sum neces-
sarius non recuso laborem; fiat voluntas tua. The fruit of
the apostolate springs not from any action, not from any
work, not from preaching, but wholly from union with
Christ Jesus, Who says Without Me you can do nothing.

"Meanwhile, I have this place apart in the wilderness to
pray in. I go up into the mountain with Our Lord to pray,
that I may come nearer to God. The new life I am called to
lead, living as a hermit, is to preach the Gospel in silence. *

The Hermit of Cat Island felt that his friends ought to
understand just what was this new life he believed he had
been called to lead, and went into it in some detail.

Fasting and abstinence from flesh meat were the basis of
his life, and he wrote, "For a hundred years after the death
of St. Francis supper was an unheard-of thing among the
friars of the motherhouse of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Sim
ilarly, with the first hermit-friars of the Capuchin reform.

"In Piers Plowman, Langland says he will not give alms

Soliloquies of a Solitary 179

to any hermit except those who eat only once a day after the
hour of None. . * , We moderns have got so habituated to
three solid meals a day that to omit or delay the regular hour
makes us imagine we are hungry. Let the hermit, then, con
form to the practice of those monasteries where the strict
observance is kept up. After Mass he will take standing the
monastic pittance a bowl of hot coffee and some dry bread.
When he has had his one full meal after None, he will not
feel the need of anything further before nightfall and bed
time. . . Wartime affords additional opportunities for sim
plifying the menu. Here, at present, cheese is unobtainable;
it is the off season for hens to lay eggs; and the sea has been
too rough for any fishing. To my dish of boiled rice or Indian
corn I add a sauce made with red peppers, tomatoes, shallots
or onions out of my garden, chopped up small, and fried
in cottonseed oil. Whether Habacuc would have passed my
mess of pottage as okay to carry to the reapers I couldn t
say, but it is probably better than any mess that Charles de
Foucauld ate in the Sahara!"

Fra Jerome goes on to describe the place where he prepared
his meals, and gives further little domestic details. "In the
tiny kitchen of his hermitage the recluse will be up against

The Solitary

180 The Hermit of Cat Island

the many inconveniences of real poverty: there is no room
to put anything down anywhere, only one small table twenty
inches square, a few narrow shelves in the corner, and a
couple of iron bars across the fireplace with its smoke-
blackened arch stones. It is raining, and he forgot to bring in
any dry sticks from the now-wet heap of firewood outside.
After the meal comes the washing up; the fried cotton oil
congeals on the plate, and burned rice sticks in the saucepan
like a sacrament that confers character! Thank God there s
no rule enjoining two meals a day."

The hermit of Mount Alvernia attached equal importance
to his clothing or rather the lack of it. "Wherever I go I
wear the gray habit and cord, donning an old torn and ragged
tunic for nightwear, for the hermit must always be on duty
with his loins girded and his light burning. ... St. Francis
said his brethren were not to wear sandals unless compelled
by necessity. Merely to substitute sandals for boots and shoes
makes, in reality, for greater comfort. A few years ago I
could not step barefoot even on the rounded shingle of the
seashore without flinching; now I can walk (and have done
fifteen miles at one stretch in a day) absolutely barefooted
over the roughest jagged rock or loose stone rubble, and un
concernedly through pools of rain water. . . . The Franciscan
hermit has his footgear perpetually being resoled and re-
heeled by nature and needs no new ones.

"About twice a year, when my hair is growing too long
down at the back of my neck, I cut it off myself in chunks
with a pair of scissors, and without needing a mirror. My
beard, after the Capuchin style, I regard not so much as an
escape from daily shaving, but as a penance. How anyone
could grow a beard for preference I cannot imagine! I sup
pose the hermits of former times must have looked a bit wild,
so I was amused when one of the rare visitors who had
climbed the hill couldn t refrain from blurting out: Well,

Soliloquies of a Solitary 181

really, you look just like one of the old prophets out of the
Bible! "

Fra Jerome continued to soliloquize about his longing
for a good library, telling how much he missed the com
panionship of books. On the other hand, he remarked that
he could manage quite well without "boatloads of spiritual
books." After all, the Bible, Breviary, and the Missal are the
three books containing "the one word of God." Another dep
rivation, a spiritual one, was that he managed to get to con
fession only about four or five times a year when a priest
happened to be on the mail steamer going to or coming from
one or the other out-island mission station.

It was a compensation that he had the privilege of saying
Mass without a server, because he could take as long as he
liked over it, "for how my server would fidget if he had some
time to kneel for an hour praying for lie missa est! Nor is
there a devoted cook fuming because the bacon is getting
cold. And why should the hermit worry if the amice does
stay around his neck more than half an hour? Standing before
this table of squared stones on the hilltop, do I not reach
back thousands of years to the sacrificum Patriarchae nostri
Abrahae; et quod tibi obtulit summus sacerdos tuus Mel-
chisedech, and forward to all eternity? So why need we
hurry?"

Fra Jerome went so far as to maintain that "the keystone
of the regular observance of a contemplative life is the night
office." Although he included in the Soliloquies a description
of his nocturnal devotions, his diary gives a more complete
and informal picture of them.

"I always ring the Angelus bell at midnight. The old sick
people down in Freetown tell me how they like to hear it in
the long, still night. . . . The midnight hour I begin thus:
God be merciful to me a sinner/ Taking holy water, I kneel
on the rock floor against the west door of the oratory. I slowly

182 The Hermit of Cat Island

make the sign of the cross. Then I look at Our Lady s image
and repeat the holy words of Lourdes: Tenance, pray for
sinners, for a sick world/ I kiss the rock, and then move
forward on my bare knees saying the Hail Mary. Halfway
I stop, and holding out my arms in the form of a cross
(fingers just touching the wall on each side) I say the Our
Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be to the Father for the in
tentions of our Holy Father the Pope. Then I go forward a
little and kiss the altar step five times in honor of the Five
Wounds (or seven times in honor of the Seven Sorrows of
Our Lady) , and twice more one for our Holy Father St.
Francis and one for St. Patrick. Then I shuffle on to the step
and kiss the edge of the altar slab. Then again move back
ward, still on my knees, and below the step kiss the rock
again, raising my arms high with hands joined, and begin
the Veni Creator Spiritus. ... I rise and kneel in the stall

and say the Litany of the Hermits Then I rise and sit and

begin my meditation.

"After an hour I light the big hurricane lamp and recite
Matins, but leave Lauds for the morning, and it makes a
good thanksgiving after Mass. If my eyes are tired, or if
there is a shortage of kerosene ... I only say the invitatory
and one nocturn of Matins at night. It s not the correct thing,
and may be a bit irregular to break up the Office thus, but
why strain and tire one s eyes and use precious midnight
oil when there will be all the day coming with the sun that
God has provided for a natural light better than a smoky
old hurricane lamp!"

The diary also sets forth the hermit s method of interces
sory prayer during the midnight hour alone before the
Blessed Sacrament.

"I travel around the world. Prayer is the golden chain that
stretches across the oceans and binds us around the feet of
God. Australia: my two bishops James Patrick and Alfred

Soliloquies of a Solitary 183

Joseph; Geraldton, Dongarra, Rf ullewa, Tardun, Perth and
the tertiaries; Ballarat, with the good Sisters and their sick
ones. Jerusalem: the Convent of Our Lady of Sion and the
orphanage. Rome: the Holy Father and Father Benedict Wil
liamson. Assisi: with all its friars of the order to which I
belong. England: my relatives and friends. Peekskill and the
Franciscan Sisters. Vancouver. Wartime Europe. These is
lands: the Bishop, Fathers and Sisters; the Apostolate of the
Sea, all sailors and fishermen; my own flock here on Cat
Island and Long Island."

His commemorations finished, Fra Jerome would return
to his cell "sometimes to sleep, sometimes to toss restlessly
about until the first streaks of daylight." On one occasion
he really felt so sick that there seemed sufficient reason for
taking a dispensation from his Rule.

"I clamped the brake down on the alarum of the clock,
and I had an extra sound sleep. I woke with a sudden start
how much of the night had passed? Is it near morning?
I strike a match. The minute hand of the clock is exactly
one minute to twelve. Well, if that s not my Guardian Angel
I haven t got one! What are you here for? Your health and
rest? Let us have no more relaxations and mitigations that
have ever been the curse of monastic observance/ 7

But of course these nocturnal observances were only part
of the Rule he had set himself. He recited the rest of the
Office during the day, read portions of the Bible or The
Imitation of Christ after his frugal breakfast, and inter
spersed his prayers with vigorous manual labor. At the close
of the day the hermit walked down the hill, then climbed
up by the steep path to make the Way of the Cross, rang
the evening Angelus, and finished his devotions.

The uncritical reader of Soliloquies of a Solitary would
be almost certain to form the idea that the rule of life ob
served by the Hermit of Cat Island was more or less a literal

184 The Hermit of Cat Island

imitation of that of the First Rule of the Friars Minor, or
that Fra Jerome was trying to conform to the Third Order
Rule. Actually the "Rule of Mount Alvernia" was a patch
work made up of bits and pieces taken from various rules.
Fra Jerome interpolated anything that he felt would be help
fal to his spiritual life without bothering whether it was
Franciscan in origin. Nevertheless, even though there is no
reference in the Soliloquies to the short Rule drawn up by
St. Francis for all Franciscan hermits, Fra Jerome insisted
that he was a hermit-tertiary of St. Francis.

His deviations from the Franciscan rule tended toward an
emphasis on mortification. For example, Franciscans do not
stand for their frugal breakfast; the "standing pittance** was
a custom that Fra Jerome picked up from the Anglican Bene
dictines at Caldey. As far as the austerities of the hermit s
fasting were concerned, he exceeded the Rules of both the
First and Third Orders which advocated neither perpetual
abstinence from flesh meat nor a "breakfast pittance and one
meal a day."

Fra Jerome s sacklike gray habit and cord, patterned after
that of the Capuchins, was quite unlike the costume of medi
eval Franciscan tertiaries who were bidden to "dress in
humble, undyed cloth . . . their outer garments and furred
coats without open throat, sewed shut or uncut but certainly
laced up, not open as secular people wear them . . . their
sleeves closed. They are pennitted to have leather purses and
belts sewed in simple fashion without silken thread, and no
other kind/ His beard likewise was a Capuchin inspiration.

Although Fra Jerome s belief that recitation of the night
Office is "the keystone to the contemplative life" was con
sistent with strict Franciscan practice, he seemed to have
forgotten that there are many contemplative orders which
do not require their members to rise in the night to recite
the Office. Moreover, the hour of mental prayer at midnight

Soliloquies of a Solitary 185

seems to have been adapted by the hermit from Cistercian
observance, rather than Franciscan. And as is usual with
Fra Jerome, he exceeded the Cistercian practice by half an
hour!

But there was one observance that Fra Jerome dearly loved
that was peculiarly Franciscan. That was the making of the
Way of the Cross. Fra Jerome s carefully carved, open-air
stations have their prototype in countless friaries all over
Europe and particularly in Italy.

And in his isolation from his fellow tertiaries Fra Jerome
was also following a tradition established in the Middle Ages
when some of the Franciscan tertiaries were so loosely con
nected with the Order that after their deaths their bodies
were claimed by Augustinians, Benedictines or Carmelites.
The hermit, once he had retired to the Bahamas, failed to
establish contact with any official branch of the Franciscan
Third Order and seemed to prefer to regard himself as a
solitary unit of a mystical world-wide "Order of St. Francis."
He even, in 1950, requested that O.S.F. and not T.O.S.F.
be added after his name, explaining that the former initials
comprised all Third Order congregations and hermits.

In the Soliloquies, however, he writes not only of St.
Francis, but of the medieval hermit Richard Rolle, of Dom
Edmund Gurdon and of Charles de Foucauld, all of whom
he considered guides to the eremitical life. And he goes on
to say that if he loves his little hermitage and wishes to be
buried in his cave, his want of detachment must be forgiven,
"since a great and holy solitary, St. Cuthbert, expressed the
wish for his remains to be laid to rest on his beloved Fame
Island beside the oratory his own hands had fashioned."

Fra Jerome ended his unique little book on a note of hu
mility. "The solitary has left the world in order to try to live
closer to God. St. Francis was able to say to God, 1 would
wish to love Thee more if it were possible, but I cannot give

186 The Hermit of Cat Island

Thee more than myself; I have given myself whole and en
tire/ How happy and blessed we poor earth-bound creatures
would be if only we could truthfully say the same. Let the
hermit kneel humbly behind little Bernadette Soubirous as
she shuffles forward on her knees over the loose stones in the
cave of Masobielle in order to hear more clearly the words
of the gracious Lady: Tenance! Pray for sinners for a sick
world/ Sancta Maria, Regina Eremitarum, ora pro nobis"
Nobody could say that profundity is a characteristic of
Soliloquies of a Solitary. Rather is it a collection of vividly
drawn and highly colored sketches, like those which illus
trated and enlivened most of the author s letters to his
friends. The prose style is as quaint and original as the pen-
and-ink drawings. Just because of his artistic temperament
it was almost impossible for John Cyril Hawes to lead a "hid
den life" in the strict meaning of the phrase. Neither could
St Francis, for that matter. Like the Little Poor Man, Fra
Jerome could not resist making grand gestures and drawing
attention to himself. Both these men were basically dramatist-
poet-knights proclaiming that they were trying to be faithful
to their Lady Poverty. Fra Jerome always saw himself in
much the same way as he saw his buildings, carvings and
paintings. He was so naive and simple that it is improbable
he realized that this little book might be regarded by un
sympathetic critics as an amusing piece of exhibitionism!
After the publication of the Soliloquies in 1952 it became
extremely difficult for the hermit to lead a hidden life, yet
even then he could not understand why people would not
leave him alone on his Bahamian island.

11.

"In Journeyings Often ..." [1944-1948]

FROM 1944 Fra Jerome found his solitude interrupted more
and more often. Both missionary work and architectural as
signments drew him away from Cat Island until Mount Al-
vernia no longer seemed like his permanent home, but like
a retreat to which he withdrew for a brief period of isolation
before he had to be off again.

One of the problems that he encountered in his missionary
work, and one that gave him a good many headaches, was that
of administering conditional Baptism to converts from An
glicanism. He himself clung to the view that rites adminis
tered by High Church clergymen must be valid. "You can t
go splitting hairs about their right intention they mean to
do what the Church does. When Protestant ministers can
imitate Catholic rites and ceremonial, and cense the altar
with the correct number of swings, etc., and probably more
rubrically than the average priest does it, can you doubt their
want of exactitude over what they know is so much more an
important thing as Baptism? . . * It s very difficult to drum
into the heads of simple folk the difference of a conditional
sacrament artd what it means; and this rebaptism 1 as they
see it makes for bitterness. . . .

"I venture to think that to accept their Anglican Baptism,

187

188 The Hermit of Cat Island

after proper inquiries, would bring more over; and suppos
ing in one case out of a hundred that Baptism was invalid,
would that be a more serious loss than one hundred people
kept away in toto from the Church because of its enforced
conditional rebaptism? In the one aforesaid supposed in
valid administration the Baptism of Desire would ensure the
salvation of that soul. You can talk and instruct until blue
in the face about the conditional* administration as pre
cautionary measure against some possible flaw in so important
a matter, but nine out of the ten will cheerfully think they
are being baptized a second time tiuo baptisms for the re
mission of sins!"

But when Lent of 1944 came round Fra Jerome abandoned
theological speculation to wonder despairingly if the condi
tional and unconditional baptisms he had administered had
done much to cast out the devil. His flock had indulged in
so much lying, thieving, adultery, gambling, drinking and
fornication, that all he could do Sunday after Sunday was to
denounce their wicked lives until he got weary of hearing
the sound of his own voice. His self-imposed penances and
his sufferings from colds, fever, sore throat and rheumatism
did nothing to raise his spirits. He wrots that he felt like a
John the Baptist in the wilderness. From the pulpit he
preached to exceptionally large congregations, all agog to
hear what he would have to say. The more pious purred in
their seats until their priest let loose on them, because they
gloated self-righteously over their neighbors sins.

A succession of fiery discourses, with plenty of references
to lions, tigers, jackals, and wolves and comparisons of some
of the listeners to slimy serpents slithering in the long grass;
then passing on to the beauty of brotherly love, Christian
charity, and the love and compassion of the Sacred Heart
for the lost sheep and the prodigal son proved effective.

"Well! Deo gratias, my sermons bore some good fruit. The

"In Journeying* Often . . ." 189

liquor-shop proprietors closed down their dance hall for the
rest of Lent, and the ole-man *hymn and hell-raiser came
along by himself to Mount Alvernia, sweating and panting
up the Via Crucis under a broiling sun. He was very humble
and repentant and made his confession the following Satur
day evening. . . . And in revenge the devil s latest attack on
the hermit came last Sunday, when I was away in Freetown.
Thieves forcibly broke into the hermitage and stole four
pounds I had left there in small silver and notes. My alms
box for the sick and needy, containing a money order from
some tertiaries in Australia, had been cashed a few days be
fore."

By way of contrast to those hell-fire sermons with their
denunciations of vice in its crudest forms, Fra Jerome was
told by Bishop Bernard shortly after Easter that he must give
the annual retreats in July to the two convents in Nassau
the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, and the native
colored Sisters of Blessed Martin de Porres. No other priest
was available. Fra Jerome wrote to Mr. Selby-Hall, "If you
get this letter in time, please ask the prayers of the Carmel
ites for me and for the poor Sisters who have got to listen to
me. I dread these retreats. I feel so helpless. I d much sooner
work ten hours a day in midsummer with my trowel, build
ing a new convent for them, than this job of plastering the
spiritual walls of souls! I m only used to preaching to Aus
tralian bushmen and miners or to poor ignorant sinners on
such subjects as Mass-missing, swearing, drinking, fighting,
thieving and fornication. These are hardly helpful themes for
holy Religious!"

But then the idea began to appeal to him. "Things hive
suddenly taken a turn. Ideas, pictures and thoughts are flow
ing in. These retreats will prove a good exercise and disci
pline for myself, even if of very little or no help to the good
Sisters. I get more and more mixed up as to what mysticism

190 The Hermit of Cat Island

and contemplation really are, the more I read about them.
It s all very high flown! The only sort for me that I can
understand is that of the holy Cur d Ars farm laborer sit
ting in the church before the tabernacle, 7 look at Him, and
He looks at me, 9 or St. Francis praying all night, My God
and my AIL The present status of Adam s earthly Paradise,
the Third Heaven, and the Seven Rungs of the Ladder of
Perfection are quite beyond me!"

Fra Jerome now decided that he must sell the Roma.
During the previous year he had not made much use of the
boat and she had been too much of an expense, what with
paint, ropes and pulleys. On her last two trips to Port Howe
and back she had nearly been wrecked, and had lost her best
big anchor. He wrote, "Much as Lloved the boat, I am glad
to be free of the last thing that might be imputed to me as
a personal possession. I wish to have absolutely nothing to
leave in my will, so I have sold her to Charles Rolle, the
Baintown catechist. She is now a useful cargo boat. Good-by,
little vessel. Many happy sails and adventures have I had
in you these four years." It was not long, however, before
Fra Jerome felt that he could not do without a boat. The
Roma was superseded by a dinghy, the Rocbird, which he
could sail himself.

Fra Jerome was overjoyed to receive a visit in June 1944
from Bishop Stephen J. Donahue of New York. "A great day!"
he wrote, "We go down to the beach to meet the plane from
Nassau, and conduct the Bishop in procession to the church."
All of the native Cat Islanders turned out for the occasion,
and Fra Jerome had fifty candidates for Confirmation ready
for the Bishop. After the ceremonies were finished, the
Bishop, the hermit and two Benedictines had lunch together.
Then a visit to the commissioner who offered to put them
up for the night. "No! They say they prefer to spend the night
up on Mount Alvernia, and don t mind if they have to rough
it at the hermitage."

"In Journeying* Often . . / 191

So back they climbed to the hilltop, where sitting on the
green lawn they had tea. Fra Jerome scrambled around mak
ing shift for the night for his guests. The Bishop, of course,
occupied the guest cell; Father Ambrose bedded down in the
shingled cabin where the hermit had laid out a sheet-covered
grass matting and pillow for him; and Father Marcion
crawled into the hermit s bunk under the window sill. Fia
Jerome rolled up a towel for a pillow and fitted himself into
the curves of the rock outside the south wall of the chapel
where a soft breeze wakened him for his midnight devotions.

In the morning, after the four priests had celebrated their
Masses, the nine altar boys who had climbed the hill to serve
the Bishop fell to upon the sandwiches, cakes and Coca-Cola
brought by the Bishop s party, while their elders contented
themselves with a more conventional breakfast. When the
episcopal group was ready to return to Nassau, they took Fra
Jerome along with them so that he might give his scheduled
retreats.

Fra Jerome was given a comfortable room and bath in the
bungalow just below the Benedictine priory where, once
the retreats were finished, he had plenty of space for a draw
ing board and to spread out his tools. Here he settled down
to working out the plans for St. Peter s Church at Clarence
Town, and, once these were finished, for the Ballarat Cathe
dral in Australia. It was grueling work and often he stayed
at it till well past midnight, but by the middle of August the
drawings were finished and the hermit found himself waiting
impatiently for the mail boat to Cat Island.

Before he left Nassau, however, Fra Jerome went to see his
old fellow missionary of Anglican days, Canon Devall. The
two friends were overjoyed to see each other again and when
Fra Jerome s visit drew to a close, very humbly the Canon
begged his blessing. The hermit was deeply affected by this
and wrote, "I, although a true priest, felt quite unworthy to
give it."

192 The Hermit of Cat Island

His visit to the Canon turned Fra Jerome s thoughts to a
comparison of Anglican services with those of the Roman
Catholic Church. Although he was far from an enthusiastic
"vernacularist," he was very much in favor of conducting
funerals, baptisms and marriages in English. It pleased him
that in the Bahamas congregational Vespers or Compline
sung in English was encouraged. But when it came to the
Mass, it was a different story, and the hermit was violently
against the use of the vernacular.

"Latin is, of course, the common and universal tongue,
essentially Catholic/ Some correspondents in the Catholic
weeklies are talking nonsense about vernacular in Germany
and Austria: there is no such thing; only rhymed paraphrases
or translations sung by the congregation during the ordinary
High or Low Latin Mass. Why all this talk? If people want
more English, let them sing a few English hymns during
Mass, and let an educated layman read the Epistle and Gos
pel in English while the priest is saying them at the altar."

This was the sort of thing Fra Jerome had started in his
Church of the Holy Redeemer, Freetown. Every Sunday the
catechist, vested in cassock and surplice on the greater festi
vals, read the Epistle and Gospel in English. On Palm Sunday
and Good Friday he read the Passion. This meant that the
priest did not have to shout his part and was saved a sore
throat. "Nothing Lutheran or revolutionary here/ Fra
Jerome commented. "But for the ordinary weekday Mass,
it is distracting if the priest reads the Missal in an extra-loud
voice, I detest those so-called dialogue Masses/ and far worse,
of course, are those yell gabbles of the Holy Rosary during
Mass. No! Dim your abominable glaring electric lights and
give me the old medieval blessed mutter of the Mass/ so
conducive to prayer and meditation. Let the priest be quick
or slow, I don t care, but don t let him shout. He stands be
fore the altar, not to say Mass, or to "read 9 Mass, but to do
itl"

"In Journeying* Often . . ." 193

These strong opinions on the manner of celebrating Mass
are matched by his attitude toward money. "Was I wise to
sell out all I had?" he asked himself, and replied without
hesitation, "No, of course not I was ever a fool, and in
tended to be one! But as I ve never run short of the where
withal to build and to help my poor souls, I order lumber
and cement and haven t a cent left to pay my bills in Nassau.
I never refuse anyone that asketh of me. I buy groceries every
weekend for my old grannies and invalids, sometimes paying
out to get a leaky part of a palm-thatched roof patched up;
or it may be a pair of dungarees for a penniless old man,
or cloth for a woman s dress, or a blanket or milk for the
baby. Always so many asking, and I ve got no money left,
and I don t know where it is to come from, but with the aid
of my Guardian Angel and St. Francis I manage to help every
body. The last mail brought a set of Mass intentions from
the Franciscan Sisters at Peekskill, and a money order for
five pounds from a friend in Australia." It was in fact amaz
ing, almost miraculous, how gifts both in money and in kind
dropped onto Cat Island like St. Thrse s shower of roses.

Throughout the autumn of 1944 Fra Jerome, despite the
fact that he was now sixty-eight years old, kept himself busier
than ever. One of his ventures was the production of a small
book of prayers and meditations, lavishly illustrated with
eighteen drawings. This he sent to his friend Father Rope.
Then he set to work to carve a seven-foot crucifix for the
Clarence Town church, using a pocketknife, since carving
tools, or even a chisel, were not available in Nassau, owing to
the war. He painted and gilded the crucifix, and while he
waited for it to dry he busied himself with drawings for the
proposed new priory at Nassau. He explained to Father
Frederic that he felt that the monks choir should be the
first portion to be built, and that the twin towers would
serve as sea beacons like those at Reculver on the north coast
of Kent in England.

194 The Hermit of Cat Island

His solitary sails in the Rocbird, in spite of the dangers
that they exposed him to, had such a beneficial effect on the
hennit s health that by the beginning o Advent he felt that
he could once again revert to a vegetable diet. The only
mitigation that he allowed himself was a mug of hot cocoa
before retiring on cold winters nights.

And from his description of Mount Alvernia at this season,
the cocoa was indeed a necessity. "Short, dark days now, and
these north winds of Atlantic Ocean gales sweep with biting
force over the hill. This time of year it is indeed Mount Al
vernia the Mount of Cold, of freezing! Of course to a well-
nourished, meat-fed Englishman this would not seem really
cold at all. But when you are of old age, and your blood is
thin after a sweltering hot tropical summer, it is, in propor
tion, in contrast, different. Every time I have to open the
kitchen door to fetch in water or firewood, I shiver in the
blast of the biting north wind coming down from the icy
waters of New York and the Hudson River. * But there was
one great relief the hog lice had completely disappeared
from the hermitage.

On December 13 he wrote that he had received no mail
for more than a month, owing to the erratic movements of
the steamer from Nassau. "Dear friends at home what
Would you think of being three weeks and five days without
a letter or a newspaper? The local storekeeper down below
at the Bight picks up occasional news on his radio, but more
often than not he is without batteries, or his set is not work
ing properly. True, a hermit ought not to pine after any
worldly news, but if you don t get any, how can you pray
for the world and for sinners?" Having little to do, Fra Je
rome amused himself by drawing a Christmas card, which
he felt appropriate to the present author.

At the beginning of 1945 Fra Jerome found himself knee
deep in building plans and operations. He left his hermitage

*7n Journeyings Often . . " 195

to camp at the Old Bight where St. Francis Church was tinder
way, and here, from January through March, he threw him
self into the supervision and construction of the building.
The tumbledown shack in which he slept was infested with
ants and other vermin, the "jiggers" bit the old man unmerci
fully, and his bare feet became sore and scabrous from tread
ing in lime.

It must have been a relief to him to finish the job and go
off to Long Island to visit Father Cornelius Osendorf with
whom he could restrict his activities to discussing plans for the
new Clarence Town church. This new Catholic church would
stand on the highest hill in the very center of Clarence Town,
its twin towers higher than those of St. Paul s "the Pearl of
the Bahamas," which Fra Jerome had designed thirty-seven
years earlier.

But he was still more uigently needed at Nassau to draw
up the working plans for the Benedictine monastery. Abbot
Alcuin Deutsch, who was staying in Nassau, and Father

196 The Hermit of Cat Island

Frederic Frey, the prior, had many conferences with Fra
Jerome which helped to crystallize their conception of the
new monastery and make a start on the building. His stay
in Nassau also afforded the hermit a much-needed rest, as he
had developed septic ulcers on his insteps and had to get
around with the aid of a stick.

Although his room at the monastery was comfortable,
and life in Nassau was easier for Fra Jerome, he looked upon
this exile from solitude more as a penance than a respite.
"Voluntas Dei/ he wrote. "When called upon, I must use
such gifts as God has given me for the general good in the
service of His Church. So I must sacrifice my solitude and
exterior detachment/ This was hard for the old man, for
the noise of Nassau bothered him and he complained of the
earsplitting, deafening roar of planes overhead, of the hoots
and grindings of motor trucks and lorries, and of the "ten
thousand dogs" that barked loudly all night long.

"I sleep (or don t!) on a huge spring bed in a large, com
fortable room and sit down to three square meals and eat
meat, too. Everybody is very kind to me here. It is a most
exemplary and edifying community, but the Paupertas of a
Benedictine monastery is a second cousin once removed
from the Lady Poverty of St. Francis. I shall be quite glad
to get back to the peace and quiet of my hermitage."

It was not until August that Fra Jerome was able to return
to Cat Island, but all was not so peaceful as he had antici
pated. Almost immediately he was called upon to settle a
bitter dispute between two groups who were about to go to
law. One man whom the decision went against was very
disappointed. "He said to the others of his party: What you
listen to that ole man for? What sort of priest is he? You
dunno what crime he wasn t sent out here for, to have to
live all alone up on that hill! . . . Good for the hermit 1 Per-

*7w Journeying* Often . . " 197

haps the best explanation as yet forthcoming of my settling
here!"

Litigation of this kind, which the hermit found so un
pleasant, was offset by his interest in enlarging the Freetown
church. For the rest of the year Fra Jerome was occupied with
the extension of the nave of the church and the construction
of the south porch. And when he really wanted to get away
from everything he took the Rocbird out for a sail.

In spite of his seventy years Fra Jerome often was forced
to anchor his boat if the wind was onshore and, sharks or no
sharks, dive into deep water and swim ashore. "The last time
I did this it was very cold/ he wrote, "but I soon got warm
walking in the sun and slipped on my habit again. I admit I
had neuritis extra bad that night. ..." The truth was that
Fra Jerome was too old for this sort of escapade, but he re
fused to take care of himself. It is not surprising that by Lent
of 1946 he was "anchored to the anchorage" by a leg and
foot "swollen as big as an elephant s, starred here and there
by decorative boils." He was incapacitated to the point
where he could not even gather kindling to light a fire, but
he says that his Guardian Angel sent a man up the hill with
a bundle of firewood and that this "heaven-sent messenger"
returned every day until he recovered.

One morning, just after he had bathed his leg and ban
daged it and was sitting writing, with his foot on an old box,
who should arrive but His Excellency the Governor Sir
Charles Murphy accompanied by his wife, daughter, and
military aide-de-camp. Fra Jerome wrote: "There they were
standing without the hermit s door. I felt worse than Eliseus
did when he saw Naaman with his horses and chariots! I d
been too sick to sweep or tidy up the place for days, and I was
in a very dirty old ragged habit (more than Franciscan).
The party came in and sat on the only chair and on boxes

198 The Hermit of Cat Island

and the cold rock seat in the corner. But I found them most
charming people, and their sons had been at my old school
Kings School, Canterbury. Lady Murphy especially was
quite intrigued with the quaintness* of the hermitage, and
looked up its chimney and missed nothing, but was too polite
to remark on the dirt and dust! They most kindly wanted to
take me away with them to Nassau on their plane, but I
couldn t have walked down the hill, because of my elephant s
leg."

Eventually he did have to go to Nassau for treatment, leav
ing his catechist to carry on the Sunday church services, be
cause no priest could be sent to take his place. By April 6
he wrote that he had made a marvelous recovery, "eating
plenty of boiled cabbage, grapefruit, limes, lemons, and a
concoction of salt and bitter wild sage." He wrote at great
length about what he was doing, supervising the layout of
the new monastery and boys college. Much as he longed for
solitude, he realized that the most acceptable thing to God
and himself at that moment was to place his architectural
knowledge of design and building at the service of the Bene
dictines. It was a big job and entailed plenty of hard work
and headaches. Fra Jerome consoled himself with the words
of St. Thrse: "Of itself prayer is of more value than work;
but it may please God more in a given circumstance to see
us working rather than praying."

In order to supervise the building he lived near the site,
five miles out of Nassau, in an old house called The Hermit
age that had been left to the Prefect Apostolic of the Ba
hamas by Cardinal O Connell. It was a beautiful place with
spacious paneled rooms, dark oak Jacobean fireplaces and
furniture, and grounds that sloped down to the sea.

"We are a very happy little community," wrote Fra Jerome.
"There are four Benedictine lay Brothers, and we rise at
5 A.M. for meditation, after which I say Mass. Breakfast is at

"In Journeying* Often . . ." 199

seven. Then the Brothers go off in a motor lorry to the site.
Sometimes I go with them, or else work at my drawing board.
... I have a big bedroom, 24 feet long and 20 wide, with an
8-foot long table on trestles for my drawing board, and to
spread out plans. Then there is a 7- by 5-foot hanging cup
board, too, and even a private bathroom! I have a lovely
view over the sea, and just before midday I slip down to the
shore and have a swim.

"The Brothers say their office from the shortened Breviary
in English (not the Little Office of Our Lady) , and it is
most edifying. They recite it slowly and reverently. They
return from the site at midday, and we talk at dinner. They
keep on their overalls. But supper at six is properly monastic
religious habit, silence and reading.

"When I am beginning my Matins in Latin in a corner of
the chapel I like hearing the Brothers say the invitatory with
all the lenten Proper/ As the Brothers say them, the verses
come with quite a new meaning to me. Alone, one has got
into the habit, alas, of rushing through the Latin Office with
out much meditation on what one is saying. I can quite im
agine that in the future completed abbey church lay visitors
will be more edified by hearing the Brothers reciting their
English Office in the crypt than the choir monks chanting
or reciting the Breviarium Monasticum up above."

A new road up to the site on Fox Hill had been completed,
and the summit and slopes of the ridge of hills all cleared.
The rocky hill rose about sixty feet above the surrounding
level of plain, and its ridge (about thirty to forty feet)
twisted east and west. Fra Jerome now realized that there
was no room for a quadrangular monastery around a four-
sided cloister with a second quadrangle for the college, so
he had to scrap his first designs and think out an entirely new
conception. He decided to follow the exigencies of the nat
ural site and make use of the varying levels. He knew by

200 The Hermit of Cat Island

experience that something suitable and original would de
velop out of it.

Father Frederic Frey, representing the Abbot Alcuin
Deutsch, was the soul of the operations. Fra Jerome said of
him that "no architect would wish to have a more intelligent
and efficient co-operator and director than Prior Frederic. He
stated his requirements clearly, leaving the architect freedom
of action, discussing every detail and making valuable sug
gestions all along that helped to make useful alterations and
practical improvements." They decided that the first section
would accommodate twenty-five priests, six lay Brothers, and
fifty students. It would be made up of cells, corridors, refec
tory, kitchen, and would include the choir of the church over
a crypt with side chapels. (At the same time Fra Jerome was
busy making drawings of a new church at the seaside resort
of Koriot in Australia, as well as plans for a new school in the
diocese of BallaraL)

The building was begun almost immediately and had
progressed far enough for the cornerstone to be laid on July
11, 1946. Most Reverend Bishop Bernard Kevenhoerster laid
the first stone of St. Augustine s Monastery and the sermon
was preached by Bishop Stephen J. Donahue, who had come
down from New York for the occasion. The venerable archi
tect was requested, or rather commanded, by his Vicar Apos
tolic to vest in his aged and moth-eaten prelatical robes for
the stone-laying function, but there is no evidence that he
obeyed the command.

Fra Jerome returned to Cat Island in August to begin
painting the big mural of Christ s charge to St. Peter on the
interior wall of the south porch at Freetown. But there was
no time for any prolonged solitude on Mount Alvernia, for
in September he and Oblate William McWeeney, who had
been his guest since the hermit got back from Nassau, boarded
the mail steamer for Long Island.

"In Journeying* Often . . ." 201

Here, at Clarence Town, there was more than enough to
do on the unfinished church of Sts. Peter and Paul. Window
traceries had to be made, and the stone proved to be very
hard and almost impossible to trim. The strength of the
arches depended on a good cement mixture. It needed con
stant supervision to get the local "masons" to fill up the joints
properly. But finally the vaulting of the church was com
pleted, along with the central tower over the transepts, and
Fra Jerome made a concrete cross to cap the little dome of
the lantern. Father Cornelius Osendorf was "a wonderful
man," so Fra Jerome wrote. "He has all the people with him,
and is making real good Catholics of them, on the founda
tions laid by Father Arnold before his death. He works like
a steam engine, setting out lines, doing mason work, driving
and keeping in repair the two trucks, the water pump and
electric plant. Over the weekends he is up and down the
island visiting his outlying missions, never neglecting the
spiritual needs for the ever-present material requirements of
building/*

One day, early in October, came a telegram that Abbot
Edmund of the Cistercian Abbey of Valley Falls, Rhode Is
land, had arrived by plane at Nassau and wanted to see Fra
Jerome immediately. Without delay the hermit left for Nas
sau, and discovered that Abbot Edmund needed plans for
extending the church and for a large new guesthouse. He
begged Fra Jerome to fly back with him to the United States
to inspect the existing buildings, but this was quite impos
sible for the hermit because the ground-floor walls of the
monastery on Fox Hill were well up by now, and needed
his attention.

Throughout November Fra Jerome stayed in the same
comfortable Benedictine quarters he had occupied before,
and not only worked on the plans for Our Lady of the
Valley, Rhode Island, but also completed all the necessary

202 The Hermit of Cat Island

detailed plans for the rest of the Fox Hill monastery build
ings, including the infirmary, refectory, kitchen and the
church with its crypt and the upper and lower sacristies. In
addition to all these drawings he made plans for the college
assembly -hall, garages, laundry and gatehouse, as well as
sketches for a future technical school. As if all this was not
enough labor for the seventy-year-old architect, he made scale
plans for the monastery guest hall and the adjoining native
Sisters convent on the southwest projecting shoulder of the
hill.

Then somehow or other he found time to make and paint
cedarwood images of "Our Lady Queen of Monks" and St.
Augustine of Canterbury, which were to be placed on either
side of the principal altar in the temporary chapel of the
monastery. In odd moments he carved a complete set of crib
figures, twenty inches high, for the Holy Redeemer Church,
Cat Island, and a "black Madonna" for St. Francis , Old
Bight. Then he set to work and made a large rood to hang
above the sanctuary arch of the chapel at the Convent of
Blessed Martin de Porres. Previous to this he had cast the
concrete columns himself for the west gallery of the chapel,
and now he went on to decorate the baroque altar frontal.

How Fra Jerome managed to do all this work in such a
short time is a mystery, but he noted in his diary that very
often he did not leave his drawing board until long after
midnight. "My Guardian Angel helps me," he wrote, "and it
is wonderful what an old man of seventy, with failing eye
sight and on all days a splitting headache, can get through."

When in December he returned to Cat Island he did not
take any real rest at the hermitage. Much of his time was
spent in rebuilding the half-ruined cottage and kitchen be
side the church at Freetown. "All finished in six weeks" is
his terse comment.

It was remarkable that the job was finished so rapidly, for

"In Journeyings Often . . / 203

according to his letters written at this time the hermit was
"head and heels in arduous occupations, spiritual and artis
tic," here, there and everywhere. He preached an Advent
mission down at Freetown, which resulted in the return of
a large number of his flock who had joined the "Jumpers
Pentecostal Church of God." He built a new crib, complete
with ox, ass, four shepherds, three kings and angels. Crowds
came after all the Christmas services to gaze in silent wonder
at the black-faced Madonna and her black pickaninny bam
bino set in an arched stone grotto and illuminated by many
candles and votive lamps. After the midnight Mass Fra Je
rome re-enacted, so far as he could, that Christmas festival at
the hermitage of Greccio when St. Francis greeted the Divine
Infant, calling him "Child of Bethlehem" and "Jesus." The
old hermit cried out the music of the name as if he were
voicing the worship of the sheep on the Judean hillside,
bending over the manger caressingly. Then, after a second
Mass at 7 A.M., still fasting, the old priest walked eight miles
to St. Francis , Old Bight, for a third Mass at 11 A.M.

The wonder was that Fra Jerome was still alive. A few
days before Christmas he had sailed over to Old Bight with
some food sent him by Bishop Bernard for distribution
among the poor out islanders. Just as he was in sight of his
haven the wind suddenly shifted. He was alone in the Roc-
bird. Knowing that the people were waiting for the Bishop s
gift, he did not like to turn back to Old Bight Creek, since
it would have been a long way for them to transport the
heavy parcels. So he ran the boat s bow square ashore, lower
ing the sail and throwing the grapnel out. Then a big wave
caught her stern and broached her to, and in a minute she
swamped. Until that moment, so he wrote, he had not the
strength even to help lift just one end of a bag of flour, "but
when you haven t time to think you are too feeble to <jk> a
thing it is wonderful what necessity can make you do.

204 The Hermit of Cat Island

"I was up to my chest in water, but hauled a soaked 100-
pound bag of flour out of the boat s well and carried it, wad
ing ashore and up the steep bank of sand, then back for the
second one, then a bag of brown sugar. A wooden box of
groceries was floating to and fro in the well, and another with
tobacco leaf in it, and a box of pork, and then two large bags
of cement. One burst as I carried it, and a wave broke over
me. There was nobody there to meet me. Just in time I
rescued an oar floating away. Then I lost my tin baling can,
and tried to use my palm, but more water came in than
any little bit I threw out, and broadside on the boat rolled
helplessly from side to side. I prayed hard to my Guardian
Angel, and then suddenly a head appeared over the green
bushes and the sea-grape creepers. Two sturdy women and
two good-sized boys. What s more, they had a pail.

" Tou s not gwine ter sail back in dis weather, your lone
self? one of the women asked.

" Yes, I am/ I replied, if I can get the boat off/

"The women kept the boat heeled over toward the shore
by hauling on the halyard, and the boys held the lee gunwale
down while I baled with the pail. Finally, after a terrific
struggle, we pushed the boat s bow off the sand and out sea
wards, and up to my neck in water I managed to hang the
rudder. We all shoved, and I threw myself over the gunwale,
seized the oars and got beyond the play of the breakers. I
stood on the f orepeak and hoisted the sail (well reefed down) ,
and waved Good-by. The wind had now backed still more
due north and dead ahead against me, and a terrible-look
ing sky overhead, with great, rolling, heavy black clouds.
The boat so often missed stays in the choppy sea that I found
it was no good taking short tacks near shore, so I ran right
out to sea in one long beat. Sudden squalls hit me, torrents
of rain fell. I was just shivering and shaking with cold. I held
the tiller with one hand, the main sheet given a hitch around

"In Journeying* Often . . ." 205

the tiller, and stooping down baled with the other. It took all
my vigilance and a bit of seamanship to meet each sudden
puff luffing right up and letting the sheet run out,

"It was now nearly dark. Far away I saw a big sailboat, the
Eurydice, running before the wind, hugging the shore, mak
ing for Old Bight Creek. This was my third long tack, and I
said to myself if I don t weather Cottage Point on this tack
I must give up and turn around and run to Old Bight Creek,
too. I could hardly see the shore, because night had fallen.
At last it loomed up close ahead. I ran in and to my joy and
wonder found I was now about a quarter of a mile to wind
ward of the rocky promontory of Cottage Point. From then
on I was in more sheltered water, and took short tacks hug
ging the shore, and eventually sailed into the smooth, pro
tected water off Freetown, and came comfortably to my
anchorage at 9 P.M. The rain had stopped and a bit of moon
lighted up the shore."

Adventures like this one took their toll of the old man.
By the middle of January 1947 Fra Jerome was back again in
Nassau, and, considering the mental and physical strain of
all he had gone through, it was not surprising that Bishop
Bernard was alarmed at the state of his health and insisted
that he must see a doctor. The diagnosis was an enlarged
heart, and complete rest was prescribed. The aged invalid
merely remarked, "Well, to be big-hearted is no detriment,
even if the same pumping engine has shifted a bit over to
port, showing the red light! But the doctor said I was quite
sound otherwise, and I need no drugs for the old heart."

It is hardly necessary to add that Fra Jerome did not obey
the doctor s orders. He had not been at Nassau very long be
fore Bishop Donahue arrived from New York, chartered a
large special plane, and flew with a party of eighteen priests
and nuns to Long Island for the blessing of the new Church
of Sts. Peter and Paul on January 27. Of course Fra Jerome

206 The Hermit of Cat Island

could not be left behind. This pleasure jaunt was followed by
more work: the carving of two large gargoyles to carry off.
rain water from part of the roof of the rapidly rising monas
tery. In more than one letter he said that he was "very tired
and suffering from an almost perpetual headache."

On March 1 1 Abbot Alcuin Deutsch blessed the completed
sections of the monastery and college, in the presence of
Bishop Bernard, His Excellency the Governor of the Ba
hamas, and a large, enthusiastic crowd.

Headache or no headache, Fra Jerome kept on working.
He busied himself with the concrete traceried windows for
the chapter hall, and the pre-cast ornamental buttress scrolls
for the stair turret top. With Prior Frederic he decorated
the three bays of the quadripartite vault of the chapter hall,
The hermit found it "rather nerve-racking" to stand all
day on a shaky scaffolding, straining his neck to do overhead
painting. Among other projects he produced a cardboard
scale model of the future monastery church, complete even
to the interior details.

He noted in his diary that he was "doing too much work,
and, often having to break off to lie down flat on my back, I
could not keep up any proper observance of my Rule. It was
no good joining the Benedictines in choir, as I say a different
Office from theirs, and it would only be a distraction. I could
not rise for my regular midnight meditation and Matins,
although I was very often working away under the electric
light until the early hours of the morning. As to meals, I
adapt the immediate circumstances to the Franciscan Rule
of eat such things as are set before you/ With so few teeth
I am a very slow eater, but have to put down all I can to keep
up strength and energy for the work to be done. My manner
of living may be temperate and frugal, but that is not mortifi
cation in the true sense, . . . Alas! May God forgive me, the
poor undisciplined vagrant hermit. I throw myself into all

7n Journeying* Often . . ." 207

this architectural work with zeal and much labor because it
is so congenial to me art first, prayer second, alas! I am what
St. Benedict terms the worst sort of monk a vagrant/ What
advance in the spiritual life have I made?"

Life had become something utterly different from what
he dreamed of before he left Australia for the Bahamas. He
had built a lovely hermitage, but now he seldom had time
to occupy it, and even when he did, his life was not that of
a true solitary.

It was not until June 10, 1947, that Fra Jerome returned
to Gat Island. The chapter-house wing of the monastery had
been completed, and the southwest tower of the church was
rising, so all the rest was plain sailing for the builders. But
no sooner had he arrived at Freetown than he set to work
on the three remaining nave arches and gables of the church.
By the time he was able to retire to his hermitage he was so
exhausted that he "let everything go anyhow for two months
no rule or horarium just rest and eat and sleep and pray."
But he could not bear the sight of solid food, and subsisted
mainly on Ovaltine and condensed milk mixed up cold with
"lots of Eno s fruit salt/ What worried Him more than his
lack of appetite was that he believed that this diet was "very
extravagant and luxurious/

But Fra Jerome was incapable of really resting completely.
His assurances to worried Mends in England were offset by
accounts of weekend sails in the Rocbird to and from Old
Bight, where he energetically heard confessions, baptized,
preached and instructed converts. One Sunday during his
period of "rest" he rose from his board bed to celebrate Mass
at 6:30 A.M., then walked nearly two miles to the beach,
pulled in the trip line on the anchor, hoisted sail and, after
a fifty-minute run with a fair breeze, landed at Freetown for
a second Mass at ten-thirty. It was not until after midday
that he at last lit a fire to prepare his breakfast. "Not a bad

208 The Hermit of Cat Island

Sunday morning s work for an old man of seventy-one with
a weak heart and perpetual pain in his stomach!"

Not a bad morning s work indeed, but Fra Jerome s devo
tion to his people was only exceeded by theirs for him. He
noted lovingly that, "Hermit as I am, and going in and out
so little among the island people, I never got to know those
in Australia or in London so intimately as I know my little
Catholic flock here. They seem bone of my bone and flesh
[of my flesh], I feel such intimate sympathy with them and
pity for them; and I think I now understand them."

Such sentiments were tempered, however, by an occasional
caustic remark on church ceremonials. To Charles Selby-
Hall, who had written him of his visit to Einsiedeln Abbey
in Switzerland, he remarked, "How I should love the Ein
siedeln Gregorian chant, frills and all, because I have a big
corner in my artistic heart for everything baroque! I should
revel in the orchestral Gounod High Mass on festivals what
a nice change it would be! The Westminster wail can be
come too monotonous. I suppose that s why the Cathedral
authorities removed Eric Gill s carving of St. Thomas More s
poor little monkey? The wail would have been too much for
it cruelty to animals! 1

Fra Jerome needed his sense of humor when on July 20
the sacristy of the church at Freetown caught fire and, along
with all its contents, was reduced to ashes. Somehow or other
he found the strength to take this setback serenely and to be
gin at once the rebuilding of the sacristy. Further, he designed
and painted an eight-foot mural for the church showing
Christ giving the keys to St. Peter, with crowds of figures,
sheep and a three-masted sailing ship in the background.
By September he had completed the plans for the Cistercian
monastery in Rhode Island and had made perspective sketches
for the exterior and interior of the abbey church at Fox Hill.

"If you have four missions to serve and no curates, and

"In Journeying* Often . . / 209

the people still have souls, you can t lie on your back all
day," he wrote. "So I do everything that an old man of sev
enty-one who is supposed to have a weak heart ought not to
do. I sail my boat across the Bight alone in squally weather,
get soaked through and chilled and mirabile! I feel ever
so much better for it the next morning. All this past week
I ve been climbing up and down ladders on the scaffolding
of the church roof and any time I get giddy and feel my heart
acting too evidently as an internal-combustion engine, then
I obey the doctor s orders at once, and retire into the house
to take things easy/ Up at the hermitage I live my Franciscan
life as a solitary, but when I ve said my Office and other re
ligious exercises, not having gifts of the Higher Contempla
tion and not being favored with ecstasies, bilocations and levi-
tations to pass my spare time away what am I to do? I can t
sit down and twiddle my thumbs; hence I drift into the afore
said maiHigi. labors for the good of my neighbors and for the
love of God."

At the end of one letter he remarked with an almost audible
chuckle, "P.S. I am realizing the blessings of old age packing
up for the last journey when you can take nothing with you.
So the blessings of loss are that I am gradually losing every
thing in turn.

"Loss of teeth protection against gluttony.

" " " hearing freedom from idle talk.

" " " speech can t be asked to preach in Nassau since
I ve only an inaudible cracked whisper.

" " " memory absolves you from keeping appoint
ments!
"etc., etc., et reliqua."

Toward the end of September 1947 the backwash of a great
hurricane passed over Mount Alvernia with such strong
winds that Fra Jerome dared not open his door for a whole
day and night. But the hurricane had the rather odd effect

210 The Hermit of Cat Island

of restoring his appetite, so he said, and he found himself able
to eat quite substantial meals again. His voice, however, had
not improved, and he was able only to reprove and exhort
his flock in whispers: "My little children love one another;
live a new life in Christ, forgiving one another. Don t go to
law with another. Flee fornication, drunkenness, revelings
and such like; bridle the tongue/

The hermit continued to drive himself, but his strength
was not what it had been. He confessed that he had no energy,
that his exertions tired him dreadfully, that even a small
amount of correspondence was a great burden. Poor Fra
Jerome. What wore him out more than anything else was
the responsibility he felt for the souls of the islanders. He
could not put their troubles out of his mind and brooded
over them continually. His people and their problems were
a perpetual distraction to the old man and no matter how
hard he tried to leave everything in the hands of God, he
found it far from easy.

His Sunday sermons which he now found so difficult to
preach haunted him beforehand. If only he had the "gift of
gab" like the Negro preachers! Even teen-age boys, he re
marked, reveled in preaching at the "Jumper" meetings.
His discouragement was so intense that he was glad to shake
the dust of Freetown from his sandals on a Sunday evening.
As he toiled up the slope of Mount Alvernia he felt as if he
never wanted to descend again.

"All in Freetown is lies, duplicity, cunning, ignorance and
covetousness," he wrote. "To me the place is Pergamos where
the devil s seat is. Where Satan dwelleth, he staggers me with
one blow after another. . . . All this past Lent and Eastertide
... I have constantly denounced the real idolatry of covetous-
ness and fornication, perjury and Obeah superstitions, and
my words are carried far beyond the churchyard and merely
raise hatred and jealousy."

"In Journeyings Often . . ." 211

The truth was that Fra Jerome was tired out. "I find even
writing a letter is a terrible effort. I have to break off con
tinually and lie down flat on my back. My stomach gives pain
if I go on too long without food at regular hours, so I have
put forward prandium to twelve noon, then I take a light
supper at 6 P.M. of bread, tea (with milk). I sleep such a lot,
not holding with the doctrine and practice of the Egyptian
hermit Macarius who slept for only one hour out of the
twenty-four. I am ashamed to say that I lie down and doze
in the morning and take a siesta every afternoon. Bishop
O Collins writes to me: Thousands in these days of upheaval
and turmoil would envy you the peace of your hermitage/
but I find that a hermit s vocation is not, in the Holy Ghost,
all joy and peace, but rather a participation in the sorrow of
the cross."

So the hermit ended his diary on a "scorching hot August
day," as he sat gazing over the ocean, empty now of the big
ships that had passecj before him in the war years. Once again
he reiterated his concern for his people. "But when, when
will I be able to visit my out missions? Old Bight, Port Howe
and Baintown? I worry over them all the time. When I was
younger and stronger I used to sail sixty-four miles round
trip there and back by sea, or forty miles round-trip walking.
Now it s impossible, but the Bishop has no priest he can
spare, so what can I do but pray?"

The same note of weariness is apparent in a letter written
to Bishop O Collins on May 7, 1948, in which Fra Jerome
says, "But don t think that Cat Island is an earthly Paradise
however lovely the colors of the sea and the waving coconut
palms! Millions might fancy envying my peaceful retreat on
the top of Mount Alvernia, but they would soon find it none
too far away a refuge from Freetown and other settlements of
the Bight where the devil goes about as a roaring lion amidst
cunning thieves and liars, religious hypocrites and false

212 The Hermit of Cat Island

prophets, rejoicing in fornication, drunkenness, wife-beating,
witchcraft, knifings and killings. The world flood of unbelief
and materialism is breaking its waves even on the shores of
these faraway isles of the sea. *

12.

The Artist at Work

WRITING in Liturgical Arts (August 1954), Maurice Lavanoux
remarked: "It would be easy and, I feel, futile to evaluate Fra
Jerome s architectural work in the light of rigid critical
norms; this would falsify the value of his work, for it contains
elements architects too often lack when working for the
Church humility, a deep love for and an understanding of
the liturgy, a feeling for proportion. And when one realizes
the poverty and economy of means with which Fra Jerome
had to cope, it must be admitted that his achievements are
really fine. It is on the level of what is called liturgical cor
rectness that Fra Jerome gives us all an object lesson. It is
more than mere correctness; it is the substance of the liturgy
in visual form that emerges from his planning and designs of
sanctuaries and altars."

What Mr. Lavanoux writes is perfectly true: it is "futile to
evaluate Fra Jerome s architectural work in the light of rigid
critical norms," because most of it is so far removed from the
work of any of his contemporary professional architects.
Somehow or other what strikes one when studying his
churches and other buildings is that almost all of them pos
sess a subtle yet indefinable Franciscan quality of joyous
spontaneity and simplicity of heart. Designing churches was

213

214 The Hermit of Cat Island

"great fun" even if they were intended for the worship of
God. One can picture Fra Jerome, even before he became a
hermit, standing at his drawing board or laboring with his
own hands, mixing cement or building a wall, saying to him
self in the words of St. Francis to Brother Leo when explain
ing to him what is perfect joy: "Above all the graces and gifts
of the Holy Ghost which Christ grants to His friends, there is
that of overcoming themselves and gladly for the love of
Christ bearing pain, insults, disgrace, and discomfort, because
we cannot glory in any of the other gifts of God they are not
ours, but God s. Therefore the Apostle says: What have you
received that you have not received from God, and why do
you glory as if you have received it? " *

Fra Jerome found the "perfect joy" in his architectural
work, not alone from artistic satisfaction, but because it was
one of the means by which he could take with good cheer the
punishments which he knew he deserved for his human
frailties. He gave himself to the work of building or rebuild
ing churches because it was one of the obvious ways in which
he could fulfill his Franciscan vocation. He had to make use
of the talents given him by God and practice his particular
craft for the good of his soul. St. Francis told him that he
would be blessed if he labored with his hands, and that was
enough for him.

His architectural work can be divided into four main
groups:

(1) 1897-1908: Anglican churches and other buildings
in England.

(2) 1909-1911: Anglican churches in the Bahamas.

(3) 1915-1939: Cathedrals, churches, convents, etc, in
Australia.

(4) 1940-1956: Churches and other buildings designed
for the Bahamas and elsewhere,

1 James Meyer, O J?.M,, The Words of St. Francis (Chicago, 1952), p. 15.

The Artist at Work 215

Fra Jerome s architectural opinions in his latter years can
be found in a long article he contributed to Liturgical Arts
(November 1950) entitled "Scratchings of a Cat Islander:
An Attempt to Rediscover Reality in Architecture." Here are
some o his statements:

"What is my theory of building? Well! just to follow na
ture, and the nature of a thing, and not to coerce it. The
hermit s eyrie lair where I dwell just grows naturally out of
the rock. You can hardly distinguish where God s rock begins.
The chapel and the little rooms are all on different levels so
you have to step up and down. Old and infirm as I am, that
does not bother me; I can find my way in the dark and know
exactly where to lay my hand on anything I want. The front
of the little house shears off at an irregular angle from the
chapel.

"Why is all so crooked and irregular? Is it fancy or a dilet
tante craze to be picturesque? Not at all! Firstly, it is because
it is fitted on to the rocky summit of the hill, just where it
would go. Secondly, because the effective operating reason is
that I was my own master and had no client to boss and tell
me, Build it straight and keep your rectangles or I ll get an
other architect/ "

So he would laugh, and say that had any sensible architect
such as one who sun bathes in huge oblongs of plate glass as
the base for his reinforced concrete walls, designed the her
mitage, he would have leveled the whole area of the hill s
summit with plenty of dynamite, so as to create a sensible
flat plateau. Then with his T-square and right-angle triangle
he would have built a house on any sort of convenient plan,
and would have made it look like a suburban villa in a civil
ized city.

" Tour hermitage is all right to gape at, but not to live
in, you say, it s so inconvenient! Maybe. But here s my de-

216 The Hermit of Cat Island

fense, which goes back scores of years to the debunked Vic
torian era. In my cradle I was taught that Britains never
will be slaves (except, of course, to a socialist state in 1950).
Now in my second childhood I rebel against the trumpeted
march of progress: I won t be a slave to modern conven
iences."

To understand Fra Jerome s theories of building it is es
sential to remember that when he was a student of architec
ture in the eighteen nineties there had been a violent reaction
from fonnal classicism. John Hawes, like all other young
men of his day, was caught up on the fast-running tide of
simplicity and naturalness in building. Architects who learned
their trade in that decade, or who started to practice it early
in the twentieth century, invariably kept one eye on the
picturesque. "The little rooms on different levels" of his her
mitage on Cat Island, its "irregular angles," and the feeling
that it had grown up out of the natural rock are just the sort
of qualities which the disciples of Philip Webb (1831-1915)
were striving after more than sixty years ago. As H. S. Good-
hart-Rendel remarks, "They had built cottages most primi
tively planned with rooms reached only one out of the other,
and with ladders instead of staircases . . . unconventional
little whitewashed houses, bashfully virgin in their simplic
ity, that were beginning to be illustrated in the pages of The
Studio. . . . The charm of their innocent unsophistication
cannot be denied." 2

The earliest buildings designed by John Hawes were a de
liberate imitation of the domestic architecture of Charles
Voysey (1857-1941). He records that he greatly admired
their picturesque, low, white, rough-cast walls, low windows,
leaded-light casements, and green slated roofs. At Bognor, Sus
sex, Hawes emulated Voysey s work in the seaside cottages

2 H. S. Goodhart-Rendel, English Architecture since the Regency (London,
1953), pp. 193, 196. / V

The Artist at Work 217

and houses he designed, but for others he adopted a Queen
Anne treatment of red sanded bricks, white-sashed windows,
and wide, dentelated roof cornices. His most original house
was The White Tower, with four rooms one above the other,
a side staircase and a flat roof giving a view over the sea.
This house was made the subject of a drawing by Raffles
Davison in The British Architect, with a most flattering ac
count of "the promising young architect." It was in keeping
with Hawes s temperament that he put a few bits of orna
mental or grotesque carving of his own into most of his
houses and cottages. For two of them he and one of his
brothers painted overmantel panels, with knights in armor
or Spanish galleons in full sail.

Faithful to the teaching of his former teachers, Professor
Lethaby and Professor Prior, young Hawes abhorred the
copying of medieval Gothic details. Late in his life he main
tained that the village church he had designed in 1899 at
Gunnerton, Northumberland, was as good as anything he
had done since, and wrote: "The steep-pitched hipped roof
of the chancel sheers above that of the nave, the wide, round-
arched windows welcome the southern sunshine while the
north wall is a blank. The dark blue-gray tint of the hammer-
dressed whinstone from the local quarry gives the rough walls
an ageless look that blends with the rocky slope dropping
steeply to an ever rushing burn (stream). Entering, you
would mistake it for a Catholic church, with its stone altar,
tapering tabernacle, and six tall candlesticks, its rood beam
and twin ambones."

Next came the Gothic gatehouse and adjoining small
chapel at Alton Abbey, Hampshire, which hardly does credit
to the architect. The large cruciform church which he de
signed here for the Anglican Order of St. Paul was never
built, or, more correctly, Hawes s designs were greatly modi
fied by another architect.

218 The Hermit of Cat Island

The brick chapel added to Painsthorpe Hall, Yorkshire,
in 1902, which then served as a monastery for the Anglican
Benedictine monks, was quite unpretentious. Yet, like the
little church at Gunnerton, it possesses that particular Hawes
quality of looking as if it had grown up spontaneously.

Just as at Gunnerton, so, too, in the guesthouse on Caldey
Island, built in 1906, the hammer-dressed blue-gray lime
stone gives the rough walls of this curious castellated struc
ture an ageless look. It is a part of the cliff on which it stands.
All the details were inspired by those of medieval buildings
on the mainland of South Wales. The unimaginative gate
house, often referred to as The House of Retreat, which was
never built, was planned with Cistercian simplicity, even if
Hawes allowed the Anglican Benedictines a tall bell tower
and a massive entrance tower the Romanesque details of
which look as if they had been copied from any history of
English medieval architecture.

The great abbey, planned to accommodate more than a
hundred monks, never got further than paper and a card
board model. Here the young architect arranged the domestic
buildings around a large cloister garth, with the church on
the north side of the enclosure. The drawings show a nave
of ten bays, two transepts, an apsidal chancel, ambulatory,
and five projective apsidal chapels. There are two western
towers, and another much loftier tower with a broach spire
over the south transept. It is obvious that Hawes found most
of his ideas in the English cathedrals of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, or in some of the Romanesque churches
he had studied in France. Had Dom Aelred Carlyle ever
found the money to erect this abbey, it would have been the
largest group of modern monastic buildings in Britain.

When John Hawes arrived in the Bahamas early in 1909
he realized at once that the only hope for any permanent im-

The Artist at Work 219

munity from hurricane damage lay in stone or concrete roofs.
But, as he remarked, "the latter were out of the question be
cause the salt-laden air soon penetrated through to any metal
reinforcement, cracking and disintegrating the cement." He
saw that some of the reinforced concrete buildings in Nassau
had failed to stand up to the force of the hurricane of the
previous year, so he decided that the only course was to get
back to the simplicity of primitive building methods.

His first experiment with "rock roofs" was on the big Lady
chapel of the ruined church at Deadman s Cay, Long Island.
The whole of this Anglican church had to be rebuilt. Now,
for the first time, he fell under the spell of Spanish baroque,
or rather the form it took when transplanted to Central and
South America. Over the high altar at Deadman s Cay arose
a baldachino with four Doric columns. The chancel and
nave were divided by a rood screen. The whole scheme was
eclectic and exotic. The new and fascinating tropical environ
ment provided an inspiration which the architect had never
found in England. Even more splendid and ambitious was
the replanned church of St. Paul, Clarence Town, which was
Spanish baroque in style with twin towers at its western end.
Besides restoring four Anglican churches on Long Island,
Brother Jerome designed a baldachino for St. Matthew s,
Nassau, and an altar for the Holy Souls Chapel in St. Mary s
in the same town.

The drawing of St. Francis Chapel, Graymoor, New York,
which Hawes made in March 1911, shows a simple little
roughcast building raised, by reason of the ground level, over
open brick arches. The curiously planned squat tower looks
as if it might have been inspired by some of the eighteenth-
century Franciscan mission churches in California, just as
those of St. Paul s, Clarence Town, appear to have been
taken from the mission at Santa Barbara (1786). The odd-

220 The Hermit of Cat Island

looking curved-stepped buttress on one side of the tower is
reminiscent of the pediment details of the facade in the Mis
sion of San Luis Rey (1798).

On his return from Canada in 1912, Hawes added a sanc
tuary, north aisle and bell tower to the Catholic Church of
the Holy Rosary, Sutton, Surrey. The tall, narrow Gothic
windows, and above all the steep-pitched roof over the lofty
apsidal sanctuary, are obviously German Gothic in inspira
tion, evoking memories of the Frauenkirche, Nuremberg,
or Erfurt Cathedral. There is a vague German flavor about
the bell tower.

Western Australia was both the best and the worst field
for the practice of architecture when John Hawes arrived
there in 1915. To all intents and purposes it was virgin soil.
Most of the Catholic churches resembled those which he
caricatured for the amusement of his friends at home. Very
few of the priests shared the enlightened ideas of Bishop
Kelly, who had already asked Father Hawes to prepare de
signs for a cathedral at Geraldton, which was to be round,
with the seats converging on the high altar. After eight years
of struggling against prevailing ideas, Father Hawes became
disillusioned and felt that there was no hope for the improve
ment of Catholic churches.

"I know perfectly well what the clergy really desire/ he
wrote critically, "i.e., an imitation Gothic, geometrical deco
rated* a church with steep-pitched roof and ornamental
parapet or buttresses; these three especially, even though they
buttress nothing, since there is no vault but the walls securely
tied in and secured from thrust by the tie beams of an open-
timber roof. But they must have their pet flying buttresses,
also their spires, although by the time the towers for them
rise to roof level all the building enthusiasm and flow of
donations will probably have ebbed away. 7
Enclosed with this letter were some sketches, entitled "Aus-

The Artist at Work 221

tralian Ecclesiastical Architecture," with the comment, "This
is the acceptable type."

To relieve himself of his feeling of frustration he described
the "New R. C. Church at Wyldcatchem a very chaste de
sign in the early Gothic style which reflects great credit on
the talented architects. . . .

"N.B. The same design all in tin can be supplied 25 per
cent cheaper. Green plate-glass windows, without the gable
crosses, and it is equally suitable for Church of England,
Methodist chapel, Salvation Army hall, Miner s Institute, or
Masonic Temple/*

Then beneath a sketch we read the ironical words, "This
elegant window above the altar resembles those of Cologne
Cathedral and St Peter s, Rome. It is glazed with tinted
cathedral glass of variegated colors, and is not surpassed by
any of the Gothic masterpieces of the old country. St. Patrick
is shown in the center light."

Nevertheless, the great cathedral at Geraldton was being
built, and in spite of strong objections raised by Bishop Ryan,
who disliked almost every detail of its plan and details, once
Dr. O Collins became Bishop of the see in 1929 it was com
pleted more or less according to the original designs.

St. Francis Xavier s Cathedral is a far cry from the "New
R. C. Church at Wyldcatchem." The former is best described
as a brilliant rechauffe. The sources of almost every one of
its contrasting features can be found in the illustrations of
Sir Banister Fletcher s monumental History of Architecture
on the Comparative Method. At the same time, when one
examines this cathedral, it is obvious that John Hawes, dur
ing those three years spent in Rome, had not confined himself
to the study of philosophy and theology. When wandering
around Italy during the college vacations he had kept his eyes
open, and he remembered later the churches he had seen.

The huge dome looks rather like a flatter version of the

222 The Hermit of Cat Island

one designed by Brunelleschi for the Cathedral of Florence,
and, like it, the Geraldton dome covers an octagonal space
between the nave and chancel. The prototype of the round
windows in the walls of the octagon can be traced to the
Florence cathedral. The twin-domed towers at the west end
are a fairly close copy of those at the California Mission of
Santa Barbara. The recessed pediment between the towers
recalls that of many a baroque church in Mexico or Peru,
whereas the great central portal is French Romanesque in
detail.

The round arches of the nave are supported on squat, un-
fluted columns of excessive bulk pure English Romanesque
of the eleventh century. The zebra striping on the walls
and arches reminds one of the interior of the Siena cathedral.
The early Renaissance canopied pulpit projecting from one
of the walls of the octagon must have been copied from
similar ones in Italian churches. The canons stalls, with neo-
Gothic canopies, occupy the apse. The bishop s throne at
the side of the sanctuary is ornately baroque, as are the
candlesticks of the long, stone high altar. It has no gradin,
but behind the large domed tabernacle rises an immense
Gothic crucifix, probably inspired by the famous Volto Santo
in the Lucca cathedral, except that there are statues of Our
Lady and St. John beside it.

Father Hawes let his imagination run riot in this striking
cathedral. He sought inspiration from all periods of archi
tecture, picking and choosing according to his fancy. There
is Byzantine carving on some of the capitals supporting the
great arches of the octagon; and the quaint little round tower
with its conical roof that juts out at the east end of the build
ing evokes memories of some early French Renaissance
cMteau on the banks of the Loire. Yet one is not conscious
of a clash of details.

In the early twenties, shortly after his return to Australia

The Artist at Work 223

from his first holiday in Europe, Father Hawes found himself
free to design a church without the need to conform to the
opinions of a client. "I am building into these stones at Mul-
lewa," he wrote, "poor little feeble work as it is, my con
victions, aspirations and ideals as to what a church should
be ideas flatly antagonistic to the prevalent notions over
here:

"(1) That a church should be monumental; therefore,
dome, stone vaults, thick walls, massive columns an heir
loom for the ages, however small and humble. Here we op
pose the adoration of the useful/

"(2) That where it cannot all be completed at once, God s
part should be built first: the altar and the house of the altar
(ara, et domus ara). Let the people continue in their tem
porary tin part or look in at the windows. The first thing
is to make a permanent resting place for the tabernacle a
real home for Jesus and Mary.

"(3) That symmetrical arrangement of parts; their me
chanical perfection and smoothness of finish are not artistic
necessities.

"(4) That a tower is a necessity, not an extravagance, and
the music of its bells is A.M.D.G.

"(5) Orientation: the church must lie east and west.

"I am building my heart into these stones and it is as likely
as not (and perhaps to the greater glory of God) a broken
heart at the end! Frustrated, disappointed, disillusioned; but
I hope resigned and more detached from earthly things/*

St. Mary s the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
and Sts. Peter and Paul was the expression of the baroque
and rococo architecture of Central America which Father
Hawes was immersed in at that time. On this small village
church he really let himself go, indulging his whimsical fan
cies. He described it as "of a Romanesque type, somewhat
after that of the churches of southern France when the Ro- .

224 The Hermit of Cat Island

manesque was in a state of transition to the Gothic. The ex
terior . . . reminiscent of the Spanish Franciscan mission
churches of California. ... It can boast no polished marbles
or glittering mosaics, but if the visitor finds the building
pleasing it is because of its rough stone walls and the com
plete absence of hard mechanical finish."

He explained that he had attempted "to reflect (however
feebly) some of the romance and quaintness of those old, old
churches of the past that were full of such marvels as we
shall never see again." And, with an eye on ritual, the plan
and arrangement of the church had been strictly designed to
meet all liturgical requirements.

The entrance door of the west front of St. Mary s was
flanked by three "barbaric-looking" spiral fluted columns on
either side with one in the center, representing the seven pil
lars of wisdom. Along the frieze above the columns Father
Hawes arranged a series of eleven carved panels portraying
the seven sacraments, with the three central panels devoted
to the Holy Eucharist as sacrament, sacrifice and Real Pres
ence. The red tiles of the roof supported fierce-looking gar
goyles which carried off the rain water, and the tall cam
panile terminated in a highly original airy octagonal lantern,
buttressed with pinnacles at its base. The bell tower had
seven bells, the smaller ones hung in the open arches.

Two inverted cup-shaped domes one over the circular
baptistery, the other above the sanctuary increased the bi
zarre effect of the exterior of the church. The north porch
was a curious mingling of Celtic and Spanish details.

Inside the building the riot of furnishing was almost over
whelming. The nave of five bays was spanned by transverse
pointed arches that supported the roof timbering. A small
choir gallery had been constructed over the porch, and in
the center of the little baptistery the font was surmounted

The Artist at Work 225

by a baldachfno with four columns. Beside the baptistery
folding doors shut off a tiny rock grotto for the Christmas
Crib. A rood cross hung suspended from the arch above the
entrance to the domed sanctuary. The high altar was a stone
sarcophagus of a baroque form, and behind the altar was an
elaborate baroque reredos. Above the domed tabernacle
Father Hawes placed a painting of Our Lady of Mount Car-
mel, and still higher a lofty exposition throne. Over all hung
a gilded tester or baldachin. The dome was painted blue,
powdered with gold stars, with a large silver dove with out
spread wings. The large stone paschal candlestand of classic
design was carved after that in the Basilica of Sts. Nereus and
Achilleus on the Appian Way outside Rome. To the north
and south of the sanctuary were two chapels, dedicated to St.
Michael and St. Joseph respectively; the latter with a stone
altar and reredos of Gothic design; the former a type of early
Christian altar found in the Roman catacombs.

On either side of the nave, just within the communion
rails, were two more altars. The holy rood altar had a retable
in flamboyant French Gothic, framing a Pieta. There were
carved wooden angels, painted and gilded, on the four corner
posts of the altar. The Lady altar had a lofty canopy of
Romanesque form. The Sacred Heart shrine, against one of
the arch piers, contained a wooden statue, carved after the
model of the Sacr-Goeur, Paris. There was yet another altar
dedicated to St. John the Baptist. Most of the windows were
filled with stained glass. One of the most unexpected details
of this little church was a "squint" through the thick wall to
enable the bell ringer to see the elevation of the Host at the
high altar, and to toll the bell accordingly.

Such is St. Mary s, Mullewa, which was the most extraor
dinary church ever designed by John Cyril Hawes, and
which expressed his whole personality and his eclectic taste

226 The Hermit of Cat Island

in matters of art. What he was striving for is summed up in
the concluding paragraph of the descriptive souvenir booklet
he wrote.

"If a church carries an atmosphere of prayer and induces
a religious mood, an uplifting of the soul, so that merely to
enter within its portals helps people to pray if everything
around seems to emphasize the fact of the Divine Presence
dwelling with the tabernacle upon the altar then, and then
only, can the building be said to fulfill its purpose."

John Hawes, like Ninian Comper, the well-known English
ecclesiastical architect, was essentially romantic in tempera
ment. Both architects in their middle age came to see that
beauty can be found only by inclusion, not by exclusion. The
latter relates that in 1908 he chanced to pick up a copy of
George Wyndham s The Springs of Romance in the Litera
ture of Europe, and was struck by the fact that, just as in
literature, so, too, in architecture unity is achieved best by
comprehension. Father Hawes had absorbed primitive Chris
tian architecture in Ireland, as well as the marvels of Spanish
Gothic, baroque and rococo. His artistic "conversion" was
complete, and from this time he realized the full meaning
of the doctrine of beauty by comprehension and put it into
practice. He broke away from convention, and from 1933
until his death his buildings showed no trace of pervading
insularity; they were truly catholic, in the sense that they
were all-embracing and of wide sympathies.

None of the many other churches in Australia designed by
Father Hawes were so ornate as St. Mary s. Among the less
elaborate was St. Laurence the Martyr, Bluff Point, Gerald-
ton (1937), a simple little cruciform building with a flat dome
over the octagonal central tower, with a faint flavor of early
Italian Renaissance. Holy Cross Church, Morawa (1933), also
evoked memories of Italy, and in particular of San Domenico
at Siena, perhaps because of the wide aisleless nave and the

The Artist at Work 227

zebra stripes around the sanctuary arch. On either side of the
arch the architect placed an altar of late-Gothic design, each
surmounted by a niche with a Gothic canopy. Father Hawes
reverted to neo-Gothic for St. Mary in Ara Coeli, Northamp
ton (1936), adding a round tower with a conical roof at the
southwest corner, with a tall narrow flfeche above the chancel.

There can be little doubt that when it came to the in
terior of St. Joseph s, Perenjon, Father Hawes must have
been studying the illustrations in Father Benedict William
son s How to Build a Church. Otherwise it is difficult to see
where he could have got the idea for the neo-Egyptian stone
baldachino, which is almost a literal copy of Father William
son s design. It is clear enough that after the publication of
How to Build a Church Father Williamson influenced his
penitent s architecture as well as his spiritual life. The church
at Perenjon contains a massive stone paschal candlestick with
an attached lectern the effect of which is overpowering and
barbaric.

The amazing versatility of Father Hawes was apparent in
the quaint little rough stone hermitage he built at Morawa
in 1933, with a low-pitched roof of heavy tiles and small
windows filled with elaborate Gothic tracery. Another so-
called hermitage actually the red-brick chaplain s residence
at St. John of God s Hospital, Geraldton harked back to
those seaside houses designed at Bognor nearly forty years
earlier. Father Hawes even employed the cut-out hearts in
some of the wooden panels of the entrance hall lounge which
were so popular with architects of the "Simple Life" school!

From the time of his return to the Bahamas in 1939 until
his death in 1956, John Hawes designed four churches for
Cat Island and two for Long Island. In addition he drew up
the plans for St. Augustine s Monastery and Boys College,
for the Convent of Blessed Martin de Porres at Nassau, and
designed the guesthouse and made plans for the enlargement

228 The Hermit of Cat Island

of the Church of the Cistercian Abbey in Rhode Island. His
final plans were those for the Nassau cathedral.

The Freetown church Holy Redeemer on which Fra
Jerome did so much hard manual labor was begun in Feb
ruary 1941 and completed about twelve years later. Accord
ing to its architect, "it shows what can be done by an old
missionary priest with a bit of sweat but very little money and
only unskilled local labor." Fra Jerome then went on to
describe the church in detail:

"It has been erected to accommodate one hundred wor
shipers with provisions for a future extension of the nave to
seat another hundred. Sturdy buttresses support three trans
verse arches of masonry that carry the longitudinal beams
of the roof (so that the side walls are merely stone screens
with plenty of window space). On the purlins is laid inch-
thick diagonal boarding covered outside with pine shingles.
The windows have no glass in them, but cement grilles inside
and wooden shutters without. Of the fourteen windows, each
grille has a different design. The altar steps are large gray
weathered blocks of stone, quarried and squared some two
hundred years ago for one of the old slavery mansions now
in ruins. The liturgical arrangement of the church follows
that of the ancient Roman basilicas. The altar is at the west
end, the celebrant facing the people, while the morning sun
streams in behind them from the wide-open double entrance
doors.

"The men all sit on the Gospel side and the women on the
Epistle side. The altar is a severely plain concrete table, its
ten-inch thick mensa resting on eight massive legs. There
would be no sense in having the priest face the people if a
big tabernacle and a crucifix and altar card came between
them to hide all his actions so the tabernacle is placed on
another and smaller altar just a few paces back. The crucifix
hangs overhead. The center altar card is always placed lying

The Artist at Work 229

flat on the front center of the wide mensa, where the cele
brant can stretch out his hand and hold it raised up if he
wants to use it at the Gloria and Credo. So the chalice and
manual actions are always in the people s view at Mass, and
out of Mass; from anywhere in the nave, you can look over
the high altar to the white domed tabernacle visible beyond
in the little chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.

"Another advantage of this plan is the additional security
and reverence afforded to the locked safe of the tabernacle
by the padlocked iron gates of the grille in the entrance arch
to the chapel. The predella platforms of the two altars merge
into one level surface so that there is nothing to trip the
priest up when he carries the ciborium from one altar to
the other. There is a somewhat similar arrangement at Down
side Abbey Church in England, the Blessed Sacrament chapel
there being immediately behind the high altar.

"For benediction a light wooden throne of four little posts
supporting a curved canopy is placed in the center of the
high altar. The campanile is built right on one side of the
sanctuary so it is handy for the sacristan or one of the altar
servers to chime the two large bells hanging in the belfry
above at the elevation and at benediction.

"The large crucifix or rood hanging above the altar is
fashioned after models of the Greek rite, the figures not being
carved in the round but cut out of fiat boards one inch by
twelve inches. The edges are rounded off, and details such as
fingers and toes of the corpus are carved in low relief and
then painted and gilded; not colored with any wishy-washy
art tints/ but with the most vivid and brilliant colors pos
sible."

Every detail of this little church is worth careful study, as,
for instance, the stone pulpit and the massive twisted stone
paschal candlestick. The rough wooden benches help to give
the right note of simplicity to the interior. Fra Jerome also

230 The Hermit of Cat Island

arranged the altar of the little church at Port Howe so that
the celebrant faced the people.

Fra Jerome spoke of the Freetown church as a "queer-look
ing building. I dislike symmetrical, new-looking churches
with a finish of mechanical perfection. Without any idea of
theatrical picturesqueness or posing as antique/ it really
has the appearance of an ancient building. It just grew like
Topsy in Uncle Tom s Cabin. Some bits of the walls are
smooth plastered and others are still rough stonework,
weathered and stained with the rains. The campanile is now
battered and scored where heavy timbers struck the belfry in
the tremendous hurricane of 1941."

In May 1945 he wrote that he was "fed up with some of
the articles in Liturgical Arts, whose authors were putting
forth as something quite new the True Principles of Archi
tecture that Pugin taught us years ago." Their "bombast
and aesthetic theorizing" finally drove him to a "protest
against their beastly concrete match-box churches." It took
the form of "a real baroque little mission church with all
the applied ornament there was time to stick on to it: bulb
ous swellings, consoles and curliwigs a touch of playful
gaiety in the stone flfeche and gable end expresses Francis
can joyfulness." Such was the origin of St. Francis Church,
Old Bight. Never before had Fra Jerome got such fun out of
designing a church. This is how he described it:

"In cement I modeled in relief St. Francis preaching to
the birds. The background of the panel on the facade is
green art cement color wash, and the figure and birds are in
silver (aluminum paint). A special Bahamian touch is
given by the palm-leaf thatch on the nave roof. The thatch
ing is beautifully executed by local men. The altar dossal is
green and silver and gilded candlesticks of turned hardwood.
The side curtains are a figured green stuff. I carved and
painted a large crucifix, ready beforehand. Above is a rose

The Artist at Work

231

. \T

window witii brilliant deep-tinted glass, predominantly red
and blue. I modeled a pair of big angels on either side above
the crucifix the angels all silver with wings picked out in
blue, red and green feathers/ Adjacent to this amusing little
church Fra Jerome built a tiny domed hermitage "just an

232 The Hermit of Cat Island

anchorage when traveling around the out missions,** was the
way he referred to it.

About a year later he was at work on a very different sort
of building the plans for a new choir for the Cistercian
Abbey of Our Lady of the Valley, Rhode Island. The existing
church was an unexciting neo-Perpendicular Gothic struc
ture with a circular apse. What Fra Jerome proposed to do
was to reverse the plan: make the monks* choir into the pub
lic nave, use the nave as the lay Brothers* choir, and add a
new, very much loftier monks choir. The design called for
eleven side altars, five of them around an ambulatory behind
the high altar, but unfortunately these plans never material
ized.

From time to time Fra Jerome received copies of architec
tural magazines, with the result that a hurricane swept over
Mount Alvernia! The reproductions of modern churches,
and even more the high praise given to them, roused him to
satire, and the drawings in which he expressed his opinion
of the new liturgical art indicate that he might have made
his fortune as a cartoonist.

He captioned one of them the"altar of the new church at
Castlemansionville, Oh-hi-oh, Pa. * with its "very practicable
form of the tabernacle, with no door to open awkwardly over
the corporal; the altar cross can be shifted across, so the priest
can stand either side of the altar. The mosaics on the wall at
the back of the altar were executed by students of the Nigh-
town Art Institute." He draws attention to "the sense of
dynamic movement in the archangel, and the didactic vigor
of the figure of St. John Chrysostom, also the essential under
lying naturalness of the lambkin."

Even more amusing is a pencil drawing described as "my
chef-d oeuvre pet design for the Abbey Church, Foxey Hill.
Rejected! because the community has not enough funds to
buy the necessary steel reinforcement and all the extra cement

The Artist at Work 235

for the concrete not to mention the thousands o feet of
lumber (now about four pounds 100 feet) to be cut up for
the form work. It won t be wasted/ I told them, because it
will serve the abbey for years to come as firewood to keep the
refrigerator working (if the ants aren t first). Then the idiots
said the salt sea air will crack it all up in five years time,
and it might fall in when the prior is preaching/ "

He points out the monks choir, "concentrated entirely on
one side only behind the altar." Then he calls attention to a
staggered iron grille which "will effectually prevent any
goats falling into the crypt. Altogether a dynamatic design,
truly hydro-rhythmic in its approach, and refreshingly free
from the enthropocentricism of retrogressive sentimental-
ism." As a final note he lettered in: "How dreadful is this
place O come, let us fall down."

In a repentant moment Fra Jerome noted, "I am too fond
of writing; too addicted to butting in on matters of art and
liturgiology. It is a subtle form of pride keeping oneself in
the public eye. I must stop it, for a hermit must be more
detached." In spite of his good resolution he was unable to
resist the temptation to "butt in" when he got thoroughly
worked up over the design for the so-called "Chapel of Unity"
in the new Anglican Cathedral at Coventry, England (1948).
The result was one of his most brilliant and most provocative
caricatures, entitled "For a new Interdenominational Cathe
dral." The drawing is explained as follows:

"The new cathedral is to have a centrally placed High
Altar in the middle of the crossing of the transepts. Really
congregational! The Tast President of the Sarum Society of
Unantiquated Architects* begs to submit this suggestion for
still more progressive comprehensiveness, i.e., a Circular
Altar (Round Table) standing on a circular ferro-concrete
predella; this revolves by electric power. The illustration
shows a celebration of the Communion service celebrants

234

The Hermit of Cat Island

"For a New Interdenominational Cathedral"

right to left: the Bishop s Chaplain; the Lord Bishop (High
Church); Canon Wellington Chasuble (Anglo-Catholic); the
Right Reverend the Dean of Canterbury (by special invita
tion) shown with raised fist at the Sanctus; the Orthodox
Archimandrake Atheniopilopolis and the Most Reverend the
Moderator of the United Free Churches stand blow the sanc
tuary. The Pope of Rome was also invited. A verger (Holy
Pokerman) operates the machinery. Thus every worshiper
can see the celebrant of his or her own particular party come
round facing them every two minutes." It will be noticed

The Artist at Work 235

that the hanging banner bears the words: "O & A, & I & <X
Round she goes while the Merry Organ blows. Old Xmas
Carol, No. 483."

These drawings, and many others of a similar nature, ex
press what Fra Jerome felt about much modern ecclesiastical
architecture. He summed up his emotions as follows: "Let
me tell you at once . . . that I am all that is bad in these days;
I am a reactionary, an obscurantist, medieval, and a double-
dyed traditionalist. Semicircular churches with sloping floors
and radiating seats like a theater I abominate; and I ve no
time for mural paintings that portray, for instance, the three
chosen disciples on Mount Tabor, dressed in sweaters and
trousers (baggy and unsailorlike at that!). Pope Pius XI, an
enlightened man appreciative of modern ideas, said: This
so-called modem art in religion must not disfigure the House
of God. Sacred art has no foundation or reason for its exist
ence unless it represents spiritual ideas. Works of art that are
foreign to the Christian tradition must not be admitted into
places of prayer. " s

Now it was just because of his own knowledge of Christian
tradition that Fra Jerome knew how to inject that elusive
thing called "atmosphere" into his churches. There is not one
church that does not pray of itself. Each has an atmosphere
of prayer and love. His churches may be "bad architecture"
from the contemporary point of view, and it is a waste of time
to discuss this, but nobody could deny that they convey the
impression of having been built with the primary purpose
of moving the soul to worship, to bringing a man to his
knees, to refreshing his soul in a weary land. They express
the note of eternity. They were designed in accordance with
the requirements of the liturgy and the particular needs of
those who worship in them. A Hawes church is definitely
the product of one mind a mind so steeped in Christian

3 "Scratchings of a Cat Islander/ Liturgical Arts, November 1950, p. 18.

236 The Hermit of Cat Island

tradition that it could receive the inspiration to apply it to
the needs it had to meet. For as we are told in St. Matthew s
Gospel: "Every scholar, then, whose learning is of the King
dom of Heaven must be like a rich man, who knows how to
bring both new and old things out of his treasure house."

There were many new and old things stored away in Fra
Jerome s treasure house, and he knew how and where to
make use of them for the greater glory of God and for the
benefit of His Church.

Fra Jerome completed the drawings of the interior and
exterior of the new cathedral at Ballarat in 1943 and sent
them to Australia from the Bahamas. Fra Jerome explained
the problems he had to solve on this big job.

"Bishop O Collins has decided not to complete the existing
cathedral, but to begin an entirely new one. The present
Victorian Gothic building is much too small; it seats only
800. So he has asked me to plan a new one. He proposes to
build the choir and transepts first, and sent me a plan of the
site and measurements, so I planned out the biggest the site
would hold. That makes a cathedral to seat 1,800 to 2,000 in
emergency (with extra seats). You may wonder from the
sketch why I have made the dome elliptical in plan instead
of circular? Because there is only 84 feet from the end of the
existing church to the fence, and I have to leave 14 feet for a
procession path outside, so I had only 70 feet to work on. I
wanted to get a very wide nave 40 feet clear. I had a letter
from the Bishop a few weeks ago. He is very pleased with the
design. On the other side there is a circular baptistery and a
sacristy, 50 feet by 20.

"In form and construction I have aimed at the utmost
simplicity so that it will be an economical structure. All use
less (or merely pretty) ornament and decoration are avoided,
in favor of spaciousness and bigness. It will be a big barn of
a church, but massive and strong, and I hope dignified. You

The Artist at Work 237

may think the apse of Ballarat Cathedral resembles the bridge
and gun turrets of a battleship! We are all so war-minded
these days that even the hermit engaged in the peaceful plan
ning of a church can t help but give it a fortress look. It is
to be faced outside with hammer-dressed bluestone that will
give it a very rugged appearance."

In this cathedral the influence of Father Benedict William
son on Fra Jerome s work is most obvious. The factory chim-
neylike twin towers at the west end of the cathedral are
strongly reminiscent of those of a church in the Via Mazzini,
Rome, shown in Father Williamson s How to Build a Church,
as well as those shown in a frontispiece drawing by the author.
The prototype of the dumpy columns dividing the wide
nave from the narrow aisles can be found in other illustra
tions in the book. The planning of the sanctuary, however,
is highly original and well worth study. The high altar is a
double one; the upper being the pontifical altar facing the
people as in many of the Roman basilicas. The bishop s
throne and the canons stalls are placed in the apse. Behind
the apse are four circular chapels with three curious little
shrines between them. In the designs for Ballarat Cathedral
(designs which are still in abeyance) Fra Jerome quite broke
away from the antiquarianism which characterized Geraldton
Cathedral. Taken as a whole, the former is definitely a "mod
ern" church. The extraordinary thing is that he should have
worked out all these ideas in solitude with no assistants to
help him. It is impossible to calculate the number of hours
he must have spent on these plans.

In an article in Liturgical Arts in November 1950, Fra
Jerome wrote: "Any buildings in my long life which people
have praised, I find, when I analyze it, that I did not subjec
tively design. It was not a question of cleverness (and I have
seen plenty of buildings much too clever). I did not design,
but I discovered. I got a vision, a hunch of my imagination,

238 The Hermit of Cat Island

and I had to marshal all the practical requirements o purpose
and use and to study obediently the exigencies o site, levels,
surroundings and materials until I got some misty vision of
fleeting beauty. Then sketch followed sketch of every varia
tion, pruning and eliminating until I could catch the rhythm
of a poem in stone. Humanly to take a similitude from the
sublime master, Michelangelo, who, facing a huge block of
shapeless marble saw, with prophet s eye, an angel in it and
started with furious blows of mallet and chisel to liberate
the angel, so I discovered my churches. Perfection in any
sort of work comes not from ourselves but from the Divine
beauty; so if a man excels in anything it is something Divine
in him, not from himself, but given to him for the world s
good. I like to live in a reality that is opposed to super-real
ism." 4

Ten years before his death, at seventy years of age, he
started on his magnum opus St. Augustine s Benedictine
monastery and school at Nassau. He wrote: "The fashion of
building my hermitage, small and poor (like the Carceri at
Assisi), would have pleased my holy father, St. Francis, but
is hardly suitable to the Benedictine tradition of spacious
and stately monasteries. The spirit of their holy founder, St.
Benedict, would have everything in order and to make use
of every available convenience. Could this old Franciscan
maniac rise to that? Sure! The very reason I threw myself,
as a young man, so wholeheartedly and exclusively into ec
clesiastical architecture was the fact that in the London archi
tects office where I was an articled pupil we did little else
but banks and pubs. For relief I fled every evening to night
schools of art and handicraft. In a spirit of revulsion and
rank rebellion, as soon as my time was up, I deserted the
temples of money and beer for the Gothic temples of true
Jerusalem. Since I had perforce learned to plan out every

p. 18.

The Artist at Work 239

corner and detail of a bank or pub/ I was quite familiar in
my slavery with all the extremes of modern convenience in
the building trade." *

Fra Jerome s theory of following the exigencies of nature
in building was the basis of the plan of St. Augustine s Mon
astery and College. Realizing that his site was a long, narrow,
rocky ridge of serpentine ground, he evolved a quite novel
and interesting monastic plan, about six hundred feet in
length, winding in and out, up and down, of monastery,
church and college.

This layout had the great advantage that both ground and
upper floors had but a single line of rooms opening out onto
a spacious corridor or cloister. Thus they were cool and airy.
Every room, upper and lower, had an arched stone roof, and
the exterior of the upper vaults was asphalted. The whole
building was hurricane-proof and immune to termites and
fire. The floors were cement or tiled. Wooden doorframes
were eliminated by fixing the door hinges onto hardwood
plugs in cement-rabbeted reveals, and the same was true of
most of the glazed casements for the windows.

The "old Franciscan maniac" got down to the most prac
tical details. He provided a concrete tank up in the south
west tower of the church, so as to ensure a good pressure of
water in every room. The water was pumped up from wells
in the monastery garden. Underground, stone-vaulted rain
water tanks added to the supply. He took infinite pains over
the plumbing, and was very pleased with the cement pipes
built into the triangular buttresses that drained the water
from the roofs.

Since he was not tied to any contract, it was easy for Fra
Jerome to ponder over and revise his plans and, as the work
progressed, he made many alterations. By November 1949
he was preoccupied with the planning of the church. He

6 Ibid., p. 19.

240 The Hermit of Cat Island

felt that he had managed to provide something "quite novel
in sacristy accommodation** for the twenty altars. There
were to be four sacristies, each with a separate approach to
five altars. The details of the architecture were nothing if
not eclectic. The massive round columns of the nave were
meant to be reminiscent of those at Tewkesbury Abbey, Eng
land, and St. Nazaire, Carcassonne, France. The high altar in
the center of the church, well raised up above the crypt (the
lay Brother s choir), was to be planned like the altars of most
of the Roman basilicas, with the celebrant facing the people,
and with large baroque candlesticks. Above it would be a
suspended crucifix. One of the drawings showed an early
Christian ciborium over the Blessed Sacrament altar in the
western transept.

About a year later Fra Jerome wrote, "The choir being
loftier, to increase a soaring effect, I have designed pointed
arches over the internal buttresses for the recesses that carry
the upper range of stalls. I purr over these pointed arches
out of defiance of super-modernists who regard anything
Gothic as heresy!** In the same defiant mood he inserted
three tall, narrow lancets in the east wall of the choir, with
a rose window above them. When he began to work on the
spacious crypt, he designed an altar almost as Egyptian in
inspiration as the one at Perenjon, Western Australia. The
walls and piers of the crypt were three feet thick in places
to take the thrust of the arched stone vaults above.

Fra Jerome s efforts to achieve beauty by comprehension
puzzled many visitors. Some remarked: "It s Moorish, isn t
it? Or Saracenic, or Gothic, or Byzantine, or isn t it rather
Egyptian?"

He would reply: "Well, the Egyptians were great people
they used stone and lime, and so do we, and that s all there
is in it, but of course we are the heirs of all the ages." e
id., p. 20.

The Artist at Work 241

Fra Jerome confessed that he could not make "scientific
geometrical perspective drawings,* and that he had forgot
ten all that he had ever learned about them as a student.
"I just draw the thing as I see it in my head," he wrote, "and
then hold it back to front (looking-glass way) and upside
down to detect the biggest errors in drawing. The revised
design of the church conveys a truthful impression of the
idea of the building, with the dim, shadowy, mysterious effect
of the low, wide-spreading nave, with its massive Egyptian-
like columns, and the sunlit upstanding choir beyond with
its pointed arches. Yes! Joie de mure better Venite exsul-
temus Domino."

From the time the hermit started work on the plans of
the Nassau monastery and its church he was always compar
ing St. Augustine s in his mind with other modern monas^
teries both in Europe and America. In November 1945 he
pointed out that, comparatively, the church would be quite
small: only 30 feet high inside with a central span of but 15
feet and an over-all length of about 130 feet. It was only nat
ural that he should think of his monastery church at Nassau
in relation to the proposed abbey church at Prinknash in
England, and it amused him to discover, after rough calcula
tions based on the human figures in the photographs sent
him, that the total height of the Prinknash Abbey church,
inclusive of its crypt and subcrypt, would be not far short of
the 175 feet of Beauvais Cathedral, the loftiest in Europe.
How modest was his church when compared with the monster
which was to be erected on the slopes of the Cotswold hills.
The latter, he worked out, would be even longer than Win
chester Cathedral, which has the greatest total length (560
feet) of any other medieval cathedral in Europe.

The long-drawn-out nave roused the hermit-architect to
fury. "If there must be a nave," he wrote, "then three bays
would be quite enough instead of seven. The view of the new

242 The Hermit of Cat Island

Prinknash Abbey from the west is just a dreadful and appal
ling conglomeration of discordant features, a jumble culmi
nating in a front of pure bathos! I have always said that the
nave was far too long, and now with the extension of the
narthex it makes the building look like a snake crawling
down the hill, and the main entrance, the serpent s mouth
or, at best, the entrance to an air-raid shelterl I notice that,
like the Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi, it is to have three
churches superimposed; yet in spite of all modem appliances
and facilities I doubt if the good monks will get the job
through so expeditiously as Brother Elias didl

"Some bishops, abbots and architects are certainly men
of far-seeing vision. But it is a gamble with the future. For
myself, while designing a church [it should be] not so small
and mean that it can be built right off the bat, but that the
first novices of the new abbey may have a sure hope of seeing
it completed in their lifetime. So at Nassau a start will be
made right off by worshiping in a portion of the permanent
church, i.e., the crypt under the future monastic choir."

Fra Jerome s opinions were not necessarily right or wrong,
but they indicated how strongly he felt about architecture,
and how much it meant to him. The English churches which
he had admired in his youth never lost their hold on his
imagination, and in 1942 he could still write, "Anglican
clergy of the early Ritualistic movement and their archi
tects often got the right idea. Look at St. Bartholomew s,
Brighton: a great brick barn, 120 feet high, but what a fane
of awe and dignity! James Brooks s churches, too St.
Columba s and St. Chad s, Haggerston, and the Ascension,
Lavender Hill Glapham. When I was an articled pupil in the
early nineties, how I used to love my Saturday afternoons
of exploration and discovery of fresh architectural triumphs,
such as St. Agnes , Kennington (Gilbert Scott the Second),

The Artist at Work 243

Holy Trinity, Sloane Street (J. D. Sedding) what a genius!
A, W. Pugin and J. D, Sedding were the morning and eve
ning stars of the Gothic Revival.*

On the other hand, illustrations of the designs for the
new Catholic cathedral at Liverpool aroused in him a strong
and scornful reaction. "Prinknash Abbey reminds me of
Liverpool Cathedral," he wrote. "I said to the Bishop of
Geraldton once, Let s build a new and even bigger cathe
dral; Downey s is only second in size to St. Peter s, Rome.
We will advertise ours by making it bigger than St. Peter s.
I think we could get enough money in a few years to build
the toilets and an oval macadamized track for motorcars to
view and encircle the seven-acre site! We could charge the
cars one shilling admittance and put the proceeds to pay for
the weekend cleanup of our existing cathedral/ "

When Fra Jerome became serious about designs for the
Nassau cathedral, however, his facetiousness vanished and
a concept both romantic and harmonious took its place. He
spoke of his dissatisfaction with his original plans for this
building and in 1947 indicated that "now I have a far better
inspiration. The harbor and ships were in my mind, and the
Mauretania lying at anchor just outside. The passengers lean
ing over the toprail gazing at lovely Nassau ought to be
made to say, And what s that tall tower right opposite?
Oh! the Roman Catholic cathedral. . . . And what s that great
round tower? Is that the pirate Blackbird s tower? . . . Oh!
it s a water tower. And what are those two tall blue spires
far away behind out there to the east? ... St. Augustine s
Abbey more Roman Catholic, eh! They get there, don t
they? "

That dream tower facing the main entrance of the harbor
at Nassau must stand up like an Egyptian pharos, so he felt
He wanted this cathedral which would probably be his last

244 The Hermit of Cat Island

building to be "of the soil of early Catholic Spanish Amer
ica/ He put his whole heart, soul, mind and even his body
into designing this proposed cathedral.

The Convent of Blessed Martin de Porres, begun about
the same time as St. Augustine s Monastery, was similar in
construction, but the lower and upper floors were planned
with rows of rooms off both sides of the central corridors.
The spacious chapel was designed with a central stone vault
of parabolic curve. In the new church at Bimini the vaulted
roof was built of conch shells, found in abundance on this
island. Fra Jerome s design for the church at San Salvador,
conceived as a memorial to Columbus, was frankly a period
piece, built in the sixteenth-century Spanish colonial style.

Sts. Peter and Paul, Clarence Town, Long Island, is the
largest of the churches which Fra Jerome designed for the out
islands in the Bahamas. It stands on a hilltop overlooking
the lovely harbor and has three towers. He records how Fra
Cornelius, "who worked on it himself all the time, devised
a clever and economical method of freeing the timber center
ing under the main stone vault and moving it on rollers from
one section to the next. These stone vaults are splendid for
sound-singing. The twin towers on the main entrance facade
are circular, like marine lighthouses, and rise to fifty-five feet,
with a central turret opening into a little gallery guarded
with a safely high parapet, whence a superb view is obtain
able."

It was a great joy to Fra Jerome that most of the few
decorative features of St. Augustine s Monastery were "mon
astic handmade handicraft." He wrote with pride of the six
medallions, carved by Father Alban, O.S.B., over the upper
air vents of the chapter room. Three of the medallions repre
sented monks engaged in manual labor: agriculture, building
and scriptorium. The fish portrayed Friday fare from Baha
mian blue waters. These medallions particularly pleased the

The Artist at Work 245

hermit for all his life he loved carving and especially the
carving and painting of crucifixes. The first of his crucifixes
seems to have been the large rood with figures of Our Lady
and SL John which he painted in tempera colors above the
round chancel arch of the ancient village church on Caldey
Island in 1906. He designed other roods for Anglican
churches on Long Island in the Bahamas. Several of his Aus
tralian churches were provided with suspended crucifixes,
which he himself carved, painted and gilded. When he re
turned to the Bahamas in 1939 he executed many more cruci
fixes, some of them with negroid features and coloring. On
the hanging rood at Clarence Town, Gat Island, the corpus
of the Christ was painted with white enamel, whereas in the
large rood in the chapel of the Convent of Blessed Martin
de Porres at Nassau all the body parts were left unpainted,
showing the natural cedarwood waxed, contrasting with the
silver drapery and the robes of Our Lady and St John. The
cross and haloes were gold, picked out with vermilion bor
ders. The features were outlined in plain, broad lines of
black enamel.

Fra Jerome wrote, "The figures are certainly not the type
of Nordic white Europeans. The good dark-skinned Sisters
when they look at Our Lady can naturally feel she s truly
our Mother/ and St. John, he s no conchy Joe! The pale
pink flesh of the conch shell is the colored native slang term
of attribute for the white Bahamian." The altar built by the
boys of the Nassau prison had another large crucifix painted
by Fra Jerome which stressed that Our Lord himself was
"no conchy Joe."

How much he enjoyed not only designing, but making
and decorating the furnishings of his churches, was clearly
indicated in a letter written while he was at work on some
of the altars at St. Augustine s Monastery. "Every day I get
into my overalls after breakfast. I ve already built two altars

246 The Hermit of Cat Island

myself, one of St. Benedict with Sts. Maurus and Placid.
After the modeling and carving are complete I put on a coat
of Dusseal and can use oil paints silver and gold right
away. St. Benedict has a black cowl, gold halo, dark olive face
and patriarchal gray beard. At his feet are the raven (eyes
turned up at him) and a broken cup with a snake coming
out, colored green, silver and gold. . . . Some of my work may
be a bit hurried and rough, but all my saints have, I think
I may say, character and individuality, and cause much in
terest from the uncultured and ignorant. The little picka
ninnies love to come in and point a finger at every detail.
They love the realistic snake, the raven, fishes and birds, and
my triumphal zoological piece, the gray wolf of Gubbio with
snarling teeth and red tongue on St. Francis altar. What
specially tickled the Apostolic Delegate, and he pointed his
finger at it laughing, was a rat praying for a bit of bread be
low the basket of Blessed Martin de Porres as he distributes
pannioti to the little Negro waifs a side wing to Our Lady
of Guadelupe s altar/

That Fra Jerome derived great fun from painting the big
mural at Freetown can be seen from the long and detailed
description he wrote of it. It was deliberately "primitive and
crude, but outright and vivid, planned as a didactic catechism
instruction." The painter himself did not care whether
critics would regard it as "high" or "low" art. His reward
would be that his own people, adults and children, would
linger, discussing every detail: the fish, the net, the cork floats
on it, the woolly sheep the rigging ("in that I was very
particular as to every stay, rope and pulley") of the big
schooner at anchor on the calm waters of the lake.

One pope was depicted in a flowing paenula and omo-
phorion, another in a fiddleback chasuble. An altar boy re
marked, "Lookl Farder s even drawn de lace jus like life!"
St Peter, garbed in blue jeans, was surrounded by carefully

The Artist at Work 247

drawn species of all the fish most common in the Bahamas.
But it was a "high-pooped (fore and aft) schooner, flying the
papal flag," which seems to have given the painter the greatest
satisfaction. "It took me one whole day from breakfast after
Mass to sunset (with a ten minutes rest for a biscuit and
cheese lunch) just to paint the schooner s rigging/ he wrote,
"Our island sailormen are very pleased with the schooner
and haven t been able to find any fault in her details not
even the rigging!"

As has been noted already, it is easy to trace the influence
of some of the late nineteenth-century English architects in
Fra Jerome s earlier work, but it must be stressed that he
never belonged to any particular school or clique. His work
is sui generis. A romantic by temperament, in many ways he
was more in touch with the past than the present* He be
longed to the end of an epoch rather than to the start of a new
one, but it would be utterly wrong to describe him as a die
hard, although he enjoyed using the expression himself.
Rather is there an ageless quality about almost all his archi
tecture, bound up so closely as it was with nature. Like a true
Franciscan he remained a child at heart, and continued to
get as much amusement out of designing churches and mon
asteries as he did in playing with his fifth birthday present
box of toy bricks.

In his seventy-fifth year he wrote, "And now I am definitely
making my final retirement from the practice of architecture
and the handling of a stone ax and trowel. This is my swan
song. I am too tired to make any more wildcat pen scratch-
ings." 7

13.

Toward Evening

FRA Jerome s health, undermined by overwork and peculiar
diet, began to decline steadily, and from the autumn of 1948
he wrote again and again of his weakness and lack of energy,
complaining that he seemed to get nothing done. Yet he
could say, "Where I would break down if I attempted any
further enterprise on my own volition, when it is clear God
is calling me to do something, He gives me sufficient strength
for it, often when it looks impossible/

This was put to the test when in October the hermit de
cided that the Port Howe people could be neglected no
longer, and that he must set out to take care of them. He had
asked the Bishop to send someone to these people, but no
priest could be spared from Nassau. There was nothing for
it but to make the long journey himself. On a moonlit Fri
day night Fra Jerome rose a half hour before midnight, made
his preparations, and started down the hill for the shore and
the road to Port Howe. After a two-hour walk he reached Old
Bight Creek where he girded his habit about his neck and
waded into the sea to revive himself. Then, barefoot, he
covered the remainder of the seven miles to St. Francis*
Church where he said Mass in solitude at 2:30 A.M.

After a rest on a palm mat he awoke at dawn to rain and

248

Toward Evening 249

a breakfast of dry bread and raisins. He was so thirsty that he
picked up a bottle lying on the floor of the sacristy and
drained a long draught from it- Instantly he spat it out it
was surface spray for mosquitoes and bugs, Poor Fra Jerome,
He had forgotten that he had brought the bottle along on
his last journey and he wrote ruefully: "Moral: always stick
a label on your bottles!"

Ignoring the bad taste in his mouth, the hermit set off in
the direction of Port Howe and by midday he was among his
people there. He said Mass for them on Sunday, then dis
covered that because of hurricane reports the mail boat would
not be sailing. For two days he waited in Port Howe until,
bored and impatient, he decided to walk back to the hermit
age. It was not surprising that this tramp of seventeen miles
each way exhausted the seventy-two-year-old pedestrian. He
was too tired to eat or sleep, and was laid up during the fol
lowing week with a sore throat and a bad cold. He wrote
later, "Well, it shows one if God wills you to do an impos
sible thing, He will give you all the necessary physical
strength and grace for it."

Three days after this long journey on foot a man arrived
at the hermitage with a message from Devil s Point, twenty-
six miles away by road, that seventy-eight persons all Bap
tists wanted to be received into the Catholic Church. "So
I wrote to the Bishop," Fra Jerome records, "asking him to
send a priest to visit them; explaining that he could land from
the mail boat at Port Howe and walk the remaining ten
miles, and then take a motor bicycle with him to return here
from Port Howe. I pointed out that if we do nothing for
these people the Jumpers or Adventists will hop in. If the
Bishop cannot do anything to help, then I ll have to struggle
to do the job myself. If this Devil s Point corporate reunion
comes off, it will bring the Catholic population of Cat Island
up to more than 300, i.e., nine years growth out of a popula-

250 The Hermit of Cat Island

tion of about 4,000. What a lot a zealous and active young
priest might do with a motor bike or jeep to cover the main
road through the island; it is so -very little that I have been
able to do."

It was a bitter disappointment to Fra Jerome to receive a
reply from Bishop Bernard informing him that he just
could not spare a priest at that moment; and that no more
monks could be sent to the Bahamas from St. John s Abbey,
Collegeville, until 1950. "Well, I am not going to worry or
shed any unnecessary tears," was Fra Jerome s comment.
"The Lord and the Abbot must provide. I shall have to do
the walking!" But in the end the aged hermit did not have
to walk to Devil s Point, for in November Bishop Bernard
managed to send Father Herman to care for the more than
a hundred catechumens.

Relieved of these onerous journeys, Fra Jerome by April
1949 was feeling "much better," although he claimed it was
from a strict observance of Lent rather than the lessening of
duties. He admitted, however, that he still had "a more or
less perpetual headache." And he was also "stony broke"
because there had been so many calls on his charity, owing
to a long drought which resulted in a food shortage on the
island. He had banished the straw mattress in his narrow
bunk, and found that a palm mat was sufficient to allow him
to sleep "very well and comfortably. I often think how luxu
rious is my life compared with the poor prisoners and slaves
behind the Iron Curtain."

How kind and devoted were the people of Cat Island to
their hermit! Despite their poverty they brought Turn a steady
stream of corn grits, potatoes, breadfruit and bananas; some
times even a little money dribbled in from partial repay
ment of outstanding loans. This was enough to provide Fra
Jerome with coffee beans, sugar and cooking fat. He had
given up butter, cheese and tinned milk long ago. His spirits

Toward Evening 251

were high, too, since all was going well after the "corporate
reunion" at Devil s Point. The ex-Baptists had already
learned to sing the Missa de Angelis.

It was inevitable at his advanced age that Fra Jerome
should begin to give serious consideration to the precise na
ture of eternity. The resurrection of the dead occupied his
thoughts and he laid bare his ideas in several letters, For ex
ample, "Since we shall not be metamorphized into angels at
the Resurrection but remain Homo, where would be the
congruity of our souls being joined again to our bodies if
those bodies do not bring in pleasure, the substance of bodily
things? They are indeed no longer sensual* but changed and
glorified bodies, but still bodies recognizable by varying
traits. As St. Augustine says, with all deficiencies corrected.
Thus the over-fiat St. Thomas Aquinas will be not too fat;
the lean no longer too thin; the lame equalized; and the babe
grown to man s stature.

"See our Blessed Lord Himself the glorious constella
tion of five stars, those scars of five wounds in His hands,
feet, and side, in His visible, tangible body. Mankind will
there no longer marry nor be given in marriage in the union
of souls. This union of souls will be perfected as one of the
joys of Heaven union of (souls of) husbands, wives, parents
and children. All Heaven is one great marriage: that of all
the redeemed the mystical body, the spouse of the Lamb.
In the Beatific Vision we shall gaze on God. God is Beauty
the All Beautiful. Art is Beauty, and Beauty is God. . . .
So we shall find and enjoy in the Beatific Vision the essence
of all the beauty of mountain scenery, of architecture, of
sculpture and painting, and of music. Such will correspofid
to the yearnings of our glorified human nature, else why a
resurrection body? Since human nature loves what God has
mad* 1 so lovely and dear in animal creation (a creation also
reflecting His limitless beauty with infinite variety) there

252 The Hermit of Cat Island

will be animals, e.g., horses and dogs, to fulfill the scope of
our human nature in our risen bodies. Rejoicing in these
things, we rejoice in God and in His beauty. There are many
mansions, and some saints of a differing and more surpassing
glory, who attained to God by pure abstract contemplation
here below, will need nothing else in the Beatific Vision but
the same pure contemplation* One star differeth from an
other in glory.

"St. Paul, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa, and other high
mystics will be looking at and satisfied with the pure essence
of the Blessed Trinity in the Beatific Vision. You and I, and
many other art and animal lovers, will rest (D.V.) in the
same Beatific Vision, in the love of beauty, of God our Crea
tor, but will see the same reflected in such humbler things
as we understand and love of what God created in our human
nature; for we are still Homo in Heaven else why a resur
rected body?

"My (resurrection) eyes will not be good enough to be able
to ascend to live in a mansion which is pure essence of light
and glory (perfect contemplation); but, rather, to bask in
God s love and beauty in an architectural mansion of form,
shape and measurement. And after all, the apocalyptic seer
St. John and the Angel went up and down the heavenly city
with a measuring rod. An orchestra played on harps, and
others who preferred riding to music came forth (attending
their king) riding on white horses. Without are dogs! But
those are the bad dogs. Holy Scripture has it worth while to
recount how Tobias s dog wagged his tail and ran in front
of the Angel, and ran forward joyously announcing their re
turn home. And then there were the good dogs that charitably
licked the sores of Lazarus (applying anti-toxin). Into some
species of animals God puts such beauty of individual char
acter. I think of my little fox terrier Dominie such love,

Toward Evening 253

trust and faithfulness one cannot but mourn the separation
from and loss of such a one.

"All which I took from thee, I did but take,

Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might st seek it in

My arms.**

Then, without a break, Fra Jerome switched off from
speculating on the after life and hurled himself into a dis
cussion of a proposed baldachino or a reredos for St, Paul s
Cathedral, London. Curiously enough, his letters seldom
dealt with theology. This example suggests that he was be
coming more conscious that his time on earth was nearing
an end.

A month or two later, however, he could write that he was
feeling wonderfully rejuvenated. Stimulated by the carving
and painting of the altars in the crypt of St. Augustine s
Monastery, every morning he donned his overalls, and worked
hard most of the day. "It s just fascinating," he wrote. "God
is very gracious to me that at my age I have enough strength
left to do it. The more I work, the less I eat, but drink a lot
of iced goat s milk, and plenty of Eno s Fruit Salt. Tell yer,
I punish plenty! as poor sick Bahamians exclaim, and I
thank God for the thorn in my flesh (hernia) that I may
have some part with Christ in our suffering brethren behind
the Iron Curtain who are ever in my thoughts and prayers.
After supper I fall asleep sitting in my cell saying my Office,
and don t get finished and in bed until usually eleven o clock,
and then up at 3 or 4 A.M. Alone in the dark chapel until the
holy old contemplative lay Brother [Anselm] . . . joins me
soon after four until the bell rings for the Angelus at five.
Prime and Terce are at five-twenty, then Conventual Mass,
then private Masses. I get the special grace of suffering mpst

254 The Hermit of Cat Island

of all during my Mass. Often I can t genuflect and can hardly
stand. Then I lie down for a quarter of an hour before break
fast at seven, and when I ve had my coffee I m a different
man. When I ve changed and work begins at eight on the
church, I feel just like a young man of thirty !"

Certainly Fra Jerome s mind was as young and lively as
it had ever been. His letters were filled with trenchant opin
ions on art, architecture, monasticism, liturgy, ceremonial
and even politics and economics. His interests ranged the
globe from Europe to Asia, Africa, Australia and back to
America and the Bahamas. It was hard to believe that now,
in 1949, he was seventy-four years old. Although he was de
prived of his solitude by his prolonged stay at Nassau he was
contented and happy, "luxuriating in the monastery," as he
put it.

He described the "grand Requiem (five absolutions) and
funeral" of the Vicar Apostolic of the Bahamas. "Such a
crowd that Mass had to be in the open air; thousands of
people." He was delighted by the monastic community, so
regular and fervent; by the food, "very wholesome and
simple, with plenty of vegetables, goat s milk and honey, all
from the monastery land." In the evening he liked to walk up
and down the long upper cloister, enjoying the view of sea
and green land spread out before him on one hand, or, on
the other side of the cloister, a glimpse of a "silent, indus
trious monk sitting at his desk reading or writing."

"What happy creatures they are!" he wrote. "At recreation
after supper they seem to me just like little children, so merry
and laughing, and still plenty of elevating and cultured dis
cussion; and such a nice family spirit. ... A visiting Bene
dictine from New York said this is the most monastic monas
tery he had ever seen nothing like it in the U.S.A. Inter
esting, austere and delightful/ so said another much-traveled
abbot.

Toward Evening 255

"It is a pleasure to me as the architect to see how really
delighted they are with the building. One monk remarked
the other day, I never thought it would be anything like
this!* The Prior, Father Frederic Frey, is really an outstand
ing man, and to him is due the whole initiation and con
ception of the monastery, both spiritual and material; add
ing, of course, the wholehearted approval and financial back
ing given by Abbot Alcuin of St John s Abbey, Minnesota.

"These monks are the most zealous and devoted apostles.
Sometimes they nearly work themselves to death, what with
sports, brass bands, and tearing about all the time in cars
and on motor bicycles! They make lots of converts, and are
most exemplary and assiduous in visiting the hospitals, prison
camps and leper settlement The colored people love them.
Lift up your eyes: the harvest is ripe* Pray ye the Lord
of the harvest to send forth more laborers* Teed my lambs,
feed my sheep. The religious orders must adapt themselves
to the needs of the age we live in, and also be ready few per
secution and confiscation of all their possessions. , . . But how
I wander on!"

It was not often that Fra Jerome s letters contained refer
ences to his friends, apart from the Bahama Benedictines
or his own island people, but on December 19, 1949, he wrote
a long epistolary appreciation of Father Benedict William
son whose death had occurred in Rome a year earlier. Father
Williamson during World War I, in which he had been
gassed and wounded, had been sought out as a confessor and
had made many converts. Three of his earlier converts had
become monastic priors, one of them the Carthusian prior of
Parkminster. Fra Jerome always referred to Father William
son as his spiritual director, but actually they met only ttoee
times between 1913 and 1939. Their relationship consisted
in a constant exchange of letters and an admiration of each
other s character and architectural work.

256 The Hermit of Cat Island

Summing up Father Williamson s career, Fra Jerome said,
"Here was a man who had given himself absolutely to God.
He lived in another world and to him were shown things
hidden from lesser souls. A man utterly impervious to the
world and unconscious of ridicule. His works live after him."

An avalanche of unwelcome publicity now began to de
scend upon Fra Jerome. During the summer of 1949 Col
lier s magazine had sent Bill Davidson, one of its writers,
to the Bahamas to prepare an illustrated article on the "Her
mit of Cat Island." Fra Jerome, innocent of the interviewing
techniques of professional journalists, proved to be spectac
ularly good "copy," and made no objections to being photo
graphed in color in several picturesque poses. The old hermit
was horrified when a copy of the magazine reached him, and
bitterly regretted his folly in talking so freely to Davidson.

Fra Jerome explained that "all his information he just
wormed out of me in affable conversation he just mesmer
ized mel He got me talking on this or that experience of my
past life; and an old man loves to go over the memories of
his past just for the fun of remembering it, and will talk it
all out (led on by judicious queries) quite oblivious of the
fact that everything you say will be used in evidence against
you/

"Then he had heard from someone of Soliloquies of a
Solitary and he referred to that as Father Jerome s published
Diary/ In the hermitage he scanned through a Ms. scrapbook
in my little shelf and found a memorandum of dates and
places in my life. Then he interviewed the Cat Island Bight
commissioner for two hours one evening, and culled legends
of an African and Obeah nature from the talk of his native
escort. Highly detailed/ you say; but accurate biography?
There is certainly nothing omitted that vivid journalistic im
agination and artistic license could supply to make good read
ing for Collier s. But Bill is a charming fellow, and I wrote

Toward Evening 257

to him: / forgfae you! 9 with a little sketch of a cat and kit
tens playing under a palm tree on an islet with hermitage
atop, ..."

After the publication of this article in July 1950, the her
mit was never left in peace. The Catholic Digest reprinted
the Collier s story, publishers besieged him for an autobiog
raphy or biography, authors offered their services and pro
posed financial terms, "fan mail" poured in. Distracted and
annoyed, Fra Jerome wrote, "Oh, why, oh, why did I fool
ishly babble out so freely to Bill Davidson? Yet natural kind
liness and courtesy could not brutally turn down a man who
had traveled all that distance, at such expense, to get to
Nassau and Cat Island from New York. The Fathers tell me
some people say that Fra Jerome must have got a big check
from Collier s for that article! Yes sleepless nights and a
string of annoying fan letters, many of them from scheming
phonies begging, gathering from Collier s that Fra Jerome
must be a philanthropic millionaire and a perfect mug."

All this unwanted publicity worried him terribly. When
he wrote Soliloquies of a Solitary he did so first under the
safeguard and protection of anonymity, not minding very
much what he said in print. These articles, when they ap
peared in Pax, were addressed primarily to those few souls
who are "fed up" with so-called modernity and progress and
seek after real solitude. But after their republication in the
Capuchin Annual, the identity of the author was revealed,
and he realized too late that the general public did not want
to read about the eremitical life; it wanted only an imagina
tive fairy tale "smeared in high lights about some wonderful
xvorldwide curiosity, " as the miserable author remarked to
a friend. After 1950 it is not untrue to say that Fra Jerome
almost regretted that he had ever built that romantic hermit
age on the highest hill in the Bahamas, much as he loved it.
Instead of enabling him to lead a solitary and hidden life, it

258 The Hermit of Cat Island

had brought him right into the full glare of the limelight.
He found himself a "star," and regarded as a public enter-
tainerl

"I ve lived too long!" Fra Jerome realized that he did not
belong to the "brave new world" which had arisen after
World War II. About the only thing left that he still enjoyed
was architecture, his first love. He seems, however, to have
found time for a considerable amount of reading, in spite
of failing eyesight. His comments on new books were pointed
and critical.

For instance, Pre Regamey s treatise, Poverty, was dis
missed as "an insult to Franciscans and our holy founder. . . .
I become more and more impatient with this modernistic
world of cranks! Nowadays some people will compass heaven
and earth to have Mass in a bedroom on a scullery table when
there is a proper church only three minutes walk down the
street. The next thing we shall hear of is a vernacular dia
logue Mass in Notre Dame, Paris, celebrated by a guy sit
ting at a little three-legged table in front of the high altar
(that being too bourgeois* to use!) dressed in a warm bell-
shaped paenula only over his blue jeans; and the workmen
congregation (mostly?) how many of them are but fervent
student Catholic Actionists? But I do admire the work of
those Paris Benedictines out in a communist suburb. I ve
forgotten their name, but they wear their habit and say their
Office in church and have converted most of the Communists
in the parish.

"Thank God! I see Liturgical Arts no longer. It s not worth
the present rate of dollar exchange for the purpose of receiv
ing sickening illustrations of steel and reinforced workshops
and factories masquerading as churches. As to those headless
trunks and ruptured intestines daubed on the wall or hacked
out of stone Painting? Sculpture? Art? Tripe and onions!"

Toward Evening 259

This letter was accompanied by some particularly malicious
caricatures of contemporary church architecture,

Solitude, now that it had become so hard to capture, was
more dear to the hermit than ever. On his periodic visits to
the Nassau Benedictines he could admit that he enjoyed the
"roomy cell, comfortable bed, water and electric light," but
such externals only helped to convince him of his Franciscan
vocation. He wrote, "The Opus Dei is all right for Benedic
tines and very edifying to outsiders, but on feast days and
many solemn Offices and Masses for the dead, when it is sten-
toriously chanted with rhythmic roar, it gets on my nerves.
I don t mind a little of it, but not too much. And the more
perfect it is, according to the up-to-date, most approved
Solesmes method of plain chant, the more it irks me, with
its up and down twenty to thirty notes on one syllable, as in
the introits, graduals, tracts, offertories and alleluias a-a-a-
a- Aa Aa Aa, aaa, ad infinitum! More acrobatics than in a
soprano s warbling of any of the florid operatic Masses! Give
me the jolly old hearty (and I suppose incorrect) Mechlin
or Rarisbon chant!"

It was a great joy to Fra Jerome when Dom Paul Leonard
Hagarty, O.S.B., was appointed to succeed Bishop Bernatd
as Vicar Apostolic of the Bahamas on June 25, 1950. The
new Bishop, whom Fra Jerome described as "a most lovable

260 The Hermit of Cat Island

man and the most popular priest among the natives/ had
been working in the Bahamas since 1937. The aged hermit
had been devoted to him ever since Dom Leonard had cut
open and cleaned out his septic foot when giving his first
mission on Cat Island in 1940. Dom Leonard had also been
one of the first visitors who stayed at the hermitage. So Fra
Jerome felt he must assist at the consecration ceremonies,
much as he detested such functions.

He described how he sat in his gray habit in a retired cor
ner among the lay Brothers, and how every time the Apostolic
Delegate turned to say "Dominus vobiscum" an electric flash
bulb caught him blinking! There were two other arch
bishops, six bishops, five abbots, four masters of ceremonies
and monsignori like the sands of the sea"; but Monsignor
John Cyril Hawes was thankful that moths had long since
eaten his purple robes, and thus he was able to hide himself.
"I looked back and sighed for the good old days," he wrote,
"when it was strictly forbidden even to photograph an empty
church interior if the Blessed Sacrament was in the taber
nacle. But Yankees love publicity and advertising, including
the clergy, and an American archbishop will stop in the mid
dle of a procession, grin and pose for any photographer
there!"

More and more did the old hermit find it difficult to under
stand the world in which he was forced to linger it was so
different from that of the days of his youth. There were
moments now when even the observances of the good and
kind Benedictine monks at Nassau puzzled him. Yet what
fine and utterly devoted mission priests they were, he stressed
again and again, even if he regretted that they did not go
about in their habits and were usually disguised as clergy
men, tearing around on motor bicycles or driving automo
biles! Poor Fra Jerome wished he could get back to the thir
teenth century and forget all the inventions of the twentieth
century. He felt like a square peg in a round hole.

Toward Evening 261

His publicity had brought him at least half-a-dozen cor
respondents who begged to be allowed to come and lead an
eremitical life on Cat Island under Fra Jerome s direction,
but he managed to "choke them off," saying: "I could not run
a community, however small, even of hermits, and I am not
called to do so. How could I dfctate to other people how to
live? I am more and more alone now, my daily prayer is Give
us to see Thy Will and power to walk in its path/ striving
after more interior detachment, expiation and penance like
a Cistercian or Carthusian." Fra Jerome insisted that "proper
hermits" do not found orders or communities.

He admitted that he could never have endured the Carthu
sian life because of the terribly long-drawn-out Office, with
the added burden o the Little Office of Our Lady, the Office
. for the Dead, and the "extra dry Mass" every morning. He
had always been more attracted to the Gamaldolesi hermit-
monks, who do not add on extra Offices, but who spend much
time in silent mental prayer. He felt that people ought to
realize that a hermit is not the same thing as an anchorite.
In the Middle Ages most hermits, although living alone, "had
jobs looking after lighthouses, bridges, chapels, leper houses,
hospitals, even schools. Richard Rolle went in and out of the
people s houses. Only the anchorites (when walled in) were
ipso facto solitaries, and their anchorage always had a window
where the people (often of their own town or village) came
to pour out their troubles. The sorrows of the world must
have sorrowed the anchorites, however much their inmost
soul was fixed in union with God. The very early solitaries
of the Egyptian desert were the only real hermit crabs! I
don t see that the missionary and solitary elements of my
poor character war with each other, any more so than in the
Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and medieval hermits (not anchorites)
who loved plenty of cold-water baths, long walking pilgrim
ages, and yet lived in close contact with the people. Surely
He hath borne our afflictions/ and the medieval hermit was

262 The Hermit of Cat Island

close to Him, in taking to heart the afflictions of the people
even more intimately and sensitively than any Trappist
monk."

It pleased Fra Jerome to discover that Thomas Merton in
The Seven Storey Mountain and The Waters of Siloe "fights
all the time to show that the mortification and isolation (con
templation) of the Cistercians and other purely contempla
tive orders is for the salvation of souls. . . . Real love of God
can find its expression only in the salvation of other souls
in mission work or propitiation. God calls chosen souls apart
into the desert; and some of these solitary souls He sends out
again into the haunts of men."

By 1952 the old hermit had to struggle hard against in
terior temptations, which he revealed in letters to his more
intimate friends. A vigorous young Benedictine priest was
sent to Cat Island whose ideas of mission work differed
strongly from those of Fra Jerome, and who made many
changes.

There were complaints, and Fra Jerome tried to pour oil
on the troubled waters and to rally the people to their new
pastor, trying hard not to interfere in any way and to do
nothing without being asked. He wrote, "I am sure that God
lets all this come to teach me detachment, and to purge me
of pride, self-satisfaction and self-preoccupation. I try not to
brood and grumble. No doubt, if I could only see it so, God
is leading this priest to do things in a much better and more
efficient way than I could ever have done."

On March 5, 1953, he was feeling depressed with every
thing and almost everybody. "I suppose that a hermit even
more than a monk is an outmoded anachronism even to many
Catholics, and that 7 am still quite wrong, even in my archi
tecture." This mood persisted, and on September 7 he wrote,
"Today is my seventy-seventh birthday seven years too long
beyond the allotted span. I m getting more and more

Toward Evening 283

stripped* of everything, and detached. Even architecture in
terests me very little now. I sleep very badly and have fearful
nights. The new mission priest is away in the U.S.A. on a
three months vacation, and no help has been sent me except
one visit of another priest to the outlying southern stations.
So all the burden is on my shoulders. Yesterday at dawn I
started for Sunday Mass and slipped on the wet rock and fell
down twice on my back on the way down the hill. If there
is any bad behavior or laughter in church I miss seeing or
hearing it. I can t intone anything or make myself heard,"

It was not quite true when Fra Jerome said that even archi
tecture interested him very little now. He expressed at this
time some very strong opinions about the new Catholic cathe
dral at Liverpool, doubting if it would ever be built He
made two sketches showing his ideas of a simple and far less
costly reinforced concrete cathedral, which could be com
pleted in a few years, saying that Lutyens designs, in these
days, were "quite impracticable."

A few months laterfhe wrote, "I look well (so everybody
tells me), sunburned, but I am full of infirmities weak and
dizzy. I have no taste, no smell, and hardly any voice, only a
croaking, hoarse whisper with great effort. Three hours* sleep
at night is my best. St. Teresa of Avila in her old age com
plained of noises and weaknesses in the head, and of the con
tinuous roaring like waves of the sea in her ears. I have just
the same, a continual buzzing and hissing sound. God goes
on stripping me of everything. I am in the dark night of the
senses. My constant prayer is to have unreserved surrender
and conformity to His holy will."

Like many another old man Fra Jerome was living moie
in the past than in die present; spending long hours dozing
or dreaming of his boyhood, youth and early manhood. He
jotted down reminiscences that were still fresh in his miod.

"In earlier years I once felt that I could make a readable

264 The Hermit of Cat Island

book on Places where I have slept not meaning such re
spectable spots as my baby cot, a back form in the school
classroom, a high-paneled box pew in an old-fashioned Prot
estant church, an armchair in the front row of a convent
college concert during a recitation, or even a straight-backed
seat during a midday meditation delivered at a priests* re
treat. No I was thinking of myself as a barefooted tramp
under a haystack in the English countryside, or in a ditch
under a hawthorn hedge in the open fields. Under an over
turned railway trolley with a hostile dog of large dimensions
sniffing and growling outside. In a farmer s barn entered
stealthily after dark. In a twopenny doss house of a town
slum. In the jail-like cell of an old-style British workhouse/
In a cold North Sea breeze, a coil of rope for my pillow, on
the deck of a coastal tramp steamer. Under the tropical stars
below the flapping sails of a trading schooner. In a tool shed
amidst the graves of the dead in an untidy churchyard. Be
low decks in a stuffy six-berthed cabin of an emigrant ship,
where the rats and mice ran over us. In one of the shelflike
tiers of bunks of a Salvation Army shelter in Montreal. In
a cattle van on a Canadian freight train, reposing in the hay
rack just above the horned heads of the animals. As a tired-
out mule driver in a tent beside a rushing mountain torrent
in a Canadian railroad construction camp. In a snow-covered
settler s log cabin beside the rail track high up over the Great
Divide into British Columbia.

"In such places it was rather where I did not sleep but
shivered through the long night watches till dawn. I have
sat out the night with intermittent dozing, stiff and cramped,
in the corner of a third-class carriage in Spain, crowded with
peasantry getting in and out at every little station, but feast
ing my eyes in the morning on the Alhambra of Granada.
One night I spent with the mosquitoes, trying to sleep on a
stone bench against the wall of Our Lady s pilgrimage chapel

Toward Evening 265

on the height overlooking Matanzas in Cuba. A succession of
five weary nights I endured on the heaving bare boards in
the hold of a West Indian trading sloop, the bilge water
gushing through the seams of the inner lining boards at every
lurch and plunge, with swarms of cockroaches scuttling to
and fro.

"While I was a sub-deacon I slept once in a quaintly
perched little room over a transept of an Italian mountain
church; it was wedged in between the vaulting and the outer
tiled roof, and reached by walking along the giddy top of a
cornice inside the church, crossing the end wall of the tran
sept. The window opened on to a little balcony from whence
you gazed down on a sheer drop of hundreds of feet on to
the treetops of a pine-clad ravine.

"Of places where I have slept I could count up many happy
recollections of Western Australia. As a bushwhacker priest,
with a parish of 40,000 square miles, how often have I camped
the night out under the moonbeams or the brilliant stars.
One must scoop a little hollow in the ground for one s hip
bone, and then lying down beside the red embers of the
campfire, with saddle for pillow, one can restfully study the
wonderful constellations in the clear heavens above. A soft,
warm breeze wafts aft the healthful scent of eucalyptus from
the guin trees, and the tinkle of the horse s back bell, as
hobbled he feeds contentedly in the long grass and wild
flowers, affords a comforting sense of companionship.

"And once on a pitch-black night lit up by blinding flashes
and with peals of thunder, in a deluge of rain I crouched
under the belly of my tall seventeen-hands saddle horse,
standing against the roofless mud-brick walls of a lonely oM
bush hostelry, known as Shadow of Death. A change of
scene to a bed, improvised on bags of cement within the risr
ing stone walls of a new church, to be awakened abruptly
from solid slumber by a fight between my dog and the car-

266 The Hermit of Cat Island

penter s. Not to speak of nights broken by sick calls necessitat
ing a motorcar drive of sixty miles or more, carrying the
Blessed Sacrament and holy oils, with many bumps and shak
ings, along those deeply rutted tracks. I call to mind a night
spent in my stable, nursing a deadly sick foal, a prize thor
oughbred who made a wonderful recovery from tetanus and
grew up to achieve some honor on the race track and to be
come an outstanding stallion.

"Then there was another sleepless night when Tlorinda
had a litter of six pups in my bedroom at the priest s house,
at 12.30 A.M. on a Sunday morning and to choose a Sunday
of all days! In railroad journeys, between the four little
bush towns of my Australian parish, many a night I have
traveled sleeping on the floor boards in the swaying, rattling
guard s van of a stock train; getting home earlier this way than
waiting for the daytime slower passenger express. Well! Here
I must put on the grinding brakes for a station."

These were the things Fra Jerome recalled as he lay on his
palm mat, more often than not unable to sleep and often
racked with pain. Few laymen, and even fewer priests, could
look back on such a strange and varied past as that which
filled the recollections of the Hermit of Cat Island.

14.

The Last Journey "[I95*-1956]

DURING July of 1954, Fra Jerome s last year on his Cat Island
hilltop, Maurice Lavanoux, Secretary of the Liturgical Arts
Society, flew to the Bahamas and climbed the narrow path to
Mount Alvernia "the last word in roughing it for a city
man" to visit the old hermit These two men, both so en
thusiastic about Christian art but seeing it from different
angles, had often fought on paper, yet for an hour or two
past battles were forgotten. This is how Mr. Lavanoux re
corded his impressions:

"As we came near the top of the hill, there was Fra Jerome
standing near the little tower of his stone hermitage. I had
seen the fine color photograph illustrating Bill Davidson s
article in Colliers . . . but on first meeting Fra Jerome in the
flesh, a flood of memories crowded on me and I could not say
much. We often hear of completely dedicated persons whose
life of devotion to the will of God and to the precepts of holy
poverty is an uncomfortable reminder of our own daily in
difference, but then our modern mind goes back to the days
of St. Francis of Assisi to St. Benedict. We complacently iso
late such thoughts in that shadowy past and unconscioosiy
forget them. The life of a hermit today is difficult for many

267

268 The Hermit of Cat Island

of us to understand. In Fra Jerome s case we have a hermit
whose life has been a productive one."

The immediate result of Mr. Lavanoux s visit to the Ba
hamas was the inclusion of some very appreciative remarks
about Fra Jerome s architecture, carving and painting in the
following issue of Liturgical Arts, some of which already have
been quoted. But the seventy-eight-year-old hermit was too
weary now to entertain distinguished visitors even when they
shared his interests.

By November Fra Jerome confessed that his hand was so
unsteady that it was difficult for him to hold a pen, and said,
"When a man has become a useless encumbrance it is futile
to prolong old age by making all sorts of efforts. God works
in different people in so many different and opposite ways.
One must be content to look upon one s missionary work
as a failure. I accept all that He sends. I criticize (still less
condemn) nothing. When I built this hermitage I thought
nothing of the rough steps to climb. Now all is different, and
it has become a most awkward and dangerous place a real
prison. Even the very Bahamas, which I once thought a Para
dise, I now regard as most unpleasant, what with the hurri
canes, storms, winds, extreme heat and cold, insects, impene
trable bush, thunder and lightning. I suffer from nervous
breakdown the jitterbugs and a sort of St. Vitus s dance.
I cannot lie down or sit still. I am all jerks! Usually I have
three bad nights, sometimes no sleep at all, followed by one
good night. During the day I have a perpetual headache and
feel ever so tired.

"In September one night I fell down in the kitchen and
caught my head against the rough stone jamb of a doorway,
badly cutting and bruising the top of my cranium, the blood
streaming down my face, but I felt no pain; it bled for ten
hours. I lay down on the bed. I could not say Mass that morn
ing. Not a soul came near the place, so after three days I

The Last Journey 269

stumbled down the hill to seek some help. I was hauled and
pushed home, and then I did not leave the hermitage for
eight weeks. ... I long to put off this tabernacle and to cry
Welcome! Sister Death/ but I have to tarry till she comes.
Fiat Voluntas Tua in universal surrender and conformity
to God s will. The kind Bishop heard of my accident and
begged me to stay at Nassau. But I want to be alone, and left
quiet here in the hermitage."

In a letter dated February 7, 1955, he admitted that he
might be an "obstinate old man," but that he was determined
to remain on by himself, maintaining that his vocation was
that of a hermit and that he could not face the idea of living
in a monastery and having everything done for him. He had
some consolation in the appointment of a good new priest
at Gat Island, Father Nicholas Kremer, O.S.B. He felt so
tired that it was difficult even to say the rosary without falling
asleep. The Bishop had sent him vitamin pills, but in spite
of everything he often found it impossible to stand or walk
straight. The writing in pencil had become a scrawl and diffi
cult to decipher. But he could still draw a rough Franciscan
tau cross, and around it the words: "Deus metis et omnia"

The hermit was now in his eightieth year. Reports of his
rapidly failing health alarmed Bishop Leonard, who eventu
ally insisted that Fra Jerome must go to Nassau, where he
could be cared for by the monks. After a few weeks in the
monastery he moved to the Bishop s house, but he did not re
main there for long. His condition became worse and there
was nothing to do except care for him in the infirmary of
St. Augustine s Monastery. In the late autumn of 1955 a
typed letter was sent to several of his friends, to which he
scrawled his signature. He said: "I am unable to write or to
do any sort of mission work or to dispense any charities be
cause I am a very sick man. So please do not write to me any
more. I suffer from all the weakness and infirmities of old

270 The Hermit of Cat Island

age. I am very giddy and can scarcely walk at all. My memory
fails me and I have lost my voice. I can only offer my infirm
ities in union with Our Lord s watching in Gethsemane. His
holy will be done in all things. I pray for you and for all those
who have commended themselves to my prayers. Let us all
practice penance and pray for a sick world. God bless you and
yours."

Now he knew that the end was not far off, even if Sister
Death lingered on her way. He wanted her to come boldly,
for like the Little Poor Man he knew that she was the gate
of life. Maybe, just as Francis sent for his beloved disciples
Leo and Angelo and said to them, "Sing to me; sing to me
my song of the creatures," Fra Jerome may have wished to ask
some of the monks to do the same for him. No matter there
can be little doubt that as he lay in bed in the monastery at
Nassau he remembered that new verse of the Canticle of the
Sun, composed by Francis as he lay sick in the bishop s palace
at Assisi.

Be praised, my Lord, for Sister Death,

From whom no man living can escape,

Alas for those who die in mortal sin,

But happy they who find themselves within Thy will,

On them the second death can work no harm.

On March 28, 1956, the hermit sent out a similar typed
letter containing further details. He had now lost all sense
of taste and remarked that this was "a good safeguard against
gluttony," and that "onions taste just like carrots; cheese is
like soap or sawdust." So, unlike St. Francis, who asked the
Lady Giacoma to bring him some marzipan when he lay
dying in the isolated cell beside the chapel of the Portiuncula
near Assisi, Fra Jerome would not have been able to taste
candy if any rich lady of Nassau had visited him in the monas-

The Last Journey 271

tic Infirmary. He could hear a little with ooe ear, but even
with glasses could hardly read at all. His constant prayer was
that he would be able to return to his beloved hermitage. In
literal imitation of the Little Poor Man, he wanted to be laid
upon the bare ground and there to die. However, the state of
his health, both physical and mental, made this impossible,

What happened during the last two months of his life was
recorded by the Prior of St. Augustine s Monastery, the Very
Reverend Frederic Frey, who was in dose touch with Fra
Jerome during this time.

"On the evening of April 19, 1956, he sustained a broken
femur as the result of a fall in his room* Due to excessive pain
he was taken to the local hospital for care and treatment but
the X ray indicated that the break was of such a kind that he
could not be treated at Nassau and required attention in the
United States, At the doctor s suggestion he was flown the
following day to St Francis Hospital, Miami Beach, Florida.
He consented to this very reluctantly and only when we told
him that he would be in the care of Franciscan Sisters and a
Franciscan priest at the hospital. On his arrival at the hospital
it was discovered that he had contracted pneumonia. This
delayed for one week the surgical treatment of the broken
femur.

"I might add as a side remark that the doctors and nurses
at first had great difficulty in understanding Fra Jerome s
eremitical mode of life, especially as regards his abstinence in
food. But they developed a great attachment to him during
his weeks with them as the result of his extraordinary degree
of patience and humility which he showed at all times. His
cheerfulness captivated them. I mention this as I was with
him for almost three weeks on his arrival and again during
his last two days.

"His recovery after surgery had been performed was quite
normal* At the time the doctors were treating Him for several

272 The Hermit of Cat Island

of his infirmities. He had progressed so well that on the
morning of June 23 the Sisters at the hospital wrote that Fra
Jerome was well enough to be taken back to the monastery.
That same afternoon he suddenly had a relapse, in all prob
ability owing to the extreme heat and humidity. His breath
ing became very labored and he was immediately put into
an oxygen tent. However, the congestion which had de
veloped in his lungs and throat weakened him extremely, and
we were notified that he had been anointed that evening,
and that I should come to him. This I did at the first oppor
tunity on the following morning. On my arrival I found that
he was still very weak and unable to speak but apparently
not in pain. He was most cheerful and greeted me with a big
smile. He made an effort to talk but was unable to do so. He
was perfectly contented and willing to answer the summons
of his Master. These three last days were days of prayer and
resignation to the will of God, and he quietly breathed forth
his soul at 2.07 A.M. on June 26."

In one of his notebooks Fra Jerome had left the following
instructions:

"In the event of my death please notify the Bishop, The
Priory, Nassau. Please bury me immediately in the Burial
Crypt (little cave) just below the chapel. (This presupposes
that I m not drowned at sea and disposed of by a shark.)

"NO COFFIN or wooden shell.

"Place the body clothed in the Franciscan habit and rope
girdle, barefooted; no flowers. Place it lying flat (on back)
on the bare rock at the extreme east end of the cave with
feet toward the east and arms outstretched in the form of a
cross. Then wall up the low arch of natural rock at A.B. with
stones and some lime mortar.

"/ C. Hawes
Fra Jerome"

The Last Journey 273

In accordance with these instructions the hermit s body
was taken by boat to Nassau where it arrived on the after
noon of June 28. The following morning the Office for the
Dead was chanted in the cathedral by Bishop Paul Leonard
Hagarty, the monks and the clergy; then the Bishop sang
the pontifical Requiem Mass. Fra Jerome s body was flown
to Gat Island, where it was placed in the cave on Mount
Alvernia, just as he had always desired. The Hermit of Gat
Island had at last found the solitude for which so many
years he had struggled in vain.

LAST WILL & TESTAMENT OF

Joannes Cyrillus Hawes, Sacerdos
Antistites Urbanus idest Praelatus Papae Domesticus

Feast of Our Lady of the Angek
(Portiuncula)

I BROTHER JEROME of the Third Order of Saint Francis,
hermit, die in the Faith of the One True Holy Catholic and
Apostolic Roman Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I commend
my soul to God, to Our Blessed Lady, to my Holy Father Saint
Francis and to the charitable prayers of my friends and especially
of my brother priests. I have left no legally attested will, because
there is no need of one: In loving response to the call and coun
sel of my dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I have already
disposed of such earthly goods as I had, and given to the poor.
I carry on by a small yearly annuity which I cannot alienate
and which expires with my death; and until then, of the said
annuity I pray I may be found a faithful steward to share it
with Christ s poor in my neighbors here.

The Hermitage of Mount Alvernia, together with the eight
acres of land surrounding it, is not my property: after purchase
of the land in 1940 (February) I legally transferred it, with
everything at any time thereon, to "The Roman Catholic Pre
fect [now "Vicar"] Apostolic of the Bahamas." I have nothing
else to leave and thank God that I die a poor man.

This is my hand and seal

Brother Jerome

John C. Hawes [ SEAL ]

2 August 1942
Witness

My Guardian Angel [SEAL]
Witness

Blessed Bernard of Quintavalle (Assisi) [SEAL]

Signed, sealed and delivered at the Hermitage, Mount Alvernia,

The Bight, Cat Island, Bahamas.

274

THE LITANY OF THE HERMITS

Drawn up by Fra Jerome and
recited by him every night

St. Mary, Queen of Hermits, pray for us

St. Mary of Mount Carmel . . .

All ye holy hermits and solitaries . . .

St. John the Baptist, "Prince of Hermits" . .

St. Mary Magdalene . . .

St. Paul the first hemiit . . .

St. Anthony . . .

St. Mary of Egypt . . ,

St. Jerome . . .

St. Martin . *

St. Romuald . . .

St. Gelatine . . .

Holy Father St. Francis . . .

All ye holy Franciscan hermits and solitaries . . .

Brother John of Alvernia . . .

Brother Giles . . .

St. Clare . . .

BI. John of Parma . . .

BL Paolo Giustiniano . . .

St. Bruno . . .

St. Benedict Joseph Labre . . *

St. Cuthbert . . .

St. Godric of Finchale- . . ,

St. Neot . . .

St. Roman . . .

St. Guthlac of Growland . . .

St. Petroc . . .

BL Richard Rolle . . .

BL Juliana of Norwich . . .

BL Charles de Foucauld . . .

Holy Hermits of Tintagel . . .

275

Appendix

BUILDINGS DESIGNED BY JOHN C. HAWES

1897-1908

Bognor, Sussex: The White Tower and three other seaside cot
tages

Gunnerton, Northumberland: St. Christopher s Church
Painsthorpe Abbey, Yorkshire: Chapel for Anglican Benedictines
Alton Abbey, Hampshire: Gatehouse, and church,* for Order

of St. Paul

Coltishall, Norfolk: Billiard room and additions to The Grove

Caldey Island, South Wales: Monastic guesthouse; restorations

of medieval priory church, village church and round tower

oratory; "gatehouse* 1 monastery*; and new abbey and church*

(for Anglican Benedictine monks)

Saltley, Birmingham: Alteration and refurnishing of three
churches

1908-1911

Bahama Islands, B.WJ. Four Anglican churches on Long Island;

(Nassau) baldachino in St. Matthew s, and Holy Souls Chapel

in St. Mary s

Graymoor, Garrison, New York (1911): St. Francis Chapel
Surrey, Sutton, England: New chancel, Our Lady of the Rosary

Church

1915-1939

Geraldton, Western Australia: Cathedral; St. Lawrence Church,
Bluff Point; cemetery chapel; Nazareth House; St. John of
God Convent; Christian Brothers school; "The Hermitage/

Churches: Mullewa, Perenjori, Morawa, Northampton, Carnar
von, Nanson, Willina, Three Springs. Convents: Yalgoo, Tar-
i Those designs marked (*) were not executed.

276

Appendix 277

dun f Nanson. Christian Brothers farm school, Tardun; PJS.M.

Monastery, Tardun; priest s house, Mullewa
Ballarat: New cathedral * and two churches *
Perth: New cathedral *
Melbourne: Chapel for diocesan seminary *
New Norcia: Abbey church *
Costa Rica: Additions to sanctuary and chapels of church at

Port Limdn

1940-1956

Cat Island: (1940-1) Hermitage and Chapel of the Holy Spirit,
Mount Alvernia; (1941-7) Holy Redeemer, Freetown; (1942)
Our Lady of Sion, Port Howe; (1943) St. John the Baptist,
Bain Town; (1945) St. Francis of Assisi, Old Bight

Long Island: (1947) Sts, Peter and Paul, Clarence Town; (1946)
Dunmore

New Providence Island: (1946) St. Augustine s College, Fox
Hill, Nassau (enlarged by R. V. McCann, 1953-4); St, Augus
tine s Monastery, Fox Hill, Nassau (first unit, 1947; crypt and
foundation of church, 1949-50) ; (1948-9) convent and ckapel
of Blessed Martin de Porres, Nassau; new cathedral,* Nassau

Bimini Islands: Holy Name

Rhode Island, USji.: Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of the Val
ley, designs for guest house and enlargement of church *

Index

Abaca Island, B.W.I., 130, 181
Aborigines, Australian, 72-3, 89
Abram s Hill, Mayaguana, 107
Addeiiey, Rev. James G., 14, 35,

37, 38, 39

Africa, Central, Universities Mis
sion to, 9-10, 13
Alban, Father, O.SJB., 244
Alton Abbey, Hampshire, design

for gate house of, 19, 217
Alvernia, Mount, Cat Island,

BAWL, 127, 149, 155-6, 161,

180,189,190,194,209,210,211;

"Rule of,** 184; Fra Jerome

buried on, 273
Ambrose, Father, O.S.B., 191
Amiens, France, 10
Amigo, Bishop of Soathwark, 55,

60,89

Anselm, Brother, O.S.B., 253
Architectural Association Schools,

England, 7

Arthur s Town, Cat Idand, 119
Arts and Crafts Society, London,

8

Art Workers Gufld, London, 8
Assisi, Italy, Father Hawes in, 111
Atonement, Society of the, 46-7,

50, 54; united with Rome, 46

Bahama Islands, B.WX, missions
in, 64, 88; John Hawes con
siders going as missionary to,
95, 106, lllff.; Fra Jerome be
comes hermit in, 119 ff.

Baintown, Cat Island, B.W.I., 139,
163, 211

Ballarat, cathedral of, Ballard,
Australia, 191, 236-7

Barry, Rev. Cofanan J., QSJ&-,

cited, 88

Beauvais, France, 10
Beda College, Rome, 5% 61, 67;

John Haves enters, 60
Benedict, St, 238; Rule of, 6
Benedict Joseph Labie, St, 154
Benedictine Mission in Bahama
Islands, 64, 88-9, 117-18, 147,
159, 195-6, 198-9, 250, 255
Bergh, (XSJB., Abbot of Rams-
gate, 89
Bernadette Soubixoos, St, 174,

186
Bernard of Qairvaux, St. cited,

154

Bernard of QointavaBe, <BL), 127
Bethany, Sisters of, Anglican com
munity, 24
Bight, the, Cat Island, 119, 130,

138, 139, 148, 152
Blessed Martin de Porres, Sisters
of, Fra Jerome gives retreat to,
189; makes rood for convent of,
202, 245; designs convent of,
227, 244

Blue Hole Channel, B.WX, 147
Bognor, Sussex, 4; architectural

designs at, 11, 216
Bolsena, Italy, 66
Boogardie, Australia, 75, 79
Bouiges, France, 10
Brendan, Father, O.S.B., 170
Bridget, St, chapel dedicated to,

33

British Architect, The, 11, 217
Budfast Abbey, England, 115
Bueischinger, Father Herbert,
O.S.B., 120

279

280

Burgoine, Jim, 79, 84
Burstall, Bryan, 27

Index

Caldey, Isle of, Wales, 26, 28; ac
quired by Abbot Aelred Carlyle,
25-6; Father Hawes draws up
plans for monastery on, 26 ff.;
establishment of Anglican Ben
edictine Community on, 26;
Brother Jerome leaves, 29;
spends week on, 39 ff.; corporate
reunion with Rome of com
munity on, 62; designs for
monastery buildings on, 218

Calgary, Canada, 56

Callahan, Father, 143

Canadian Pacific Railroad, con
struction camp of, 56

Canterbury Cathedral, 6

Capuchin Annual, 257

Carceri, Monte Subasio, Italy,
Father Hawes visits, 111, 167

Carlyle, Abbot Aelred, O.S.B., 19,
20, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 33, 47, 62,
89, 218

Carlyle, Benjamin Fearnley. See
Carlyle, Aelred

Cat Island, B.W.L, 88, 117, 119,
126, 129, 130, 136, 166, 175, 176,
196, 200, 202, 207, 211, 250; hur
ricane strikes, 154 ff.; poverty
on, 160-1

Catholic Digest, The, 257

Catholic Herald, The, 124

Caudebec, France, 10

Chambers, Dom George, 30, 32

Chartres, France, 10

Cherokee Sound, B.W.I., 131-2,
133

Chesterton, Cecil, 37

Chollerton, Northumberland, 16

Christian Social Union, 14

Christian Socialist movement, 14

Church Review, The, 19

Church Times, The, 9, 47

Church Unity Octave, 46
Clarence Town, Long Island,

B.W.I., 41, 120, 195
Claudia, Sister M., 89
Clerkenwell, London, slum of,

21-3
Clune, Archbishop of Perth, 90,

94, 103

Collier s, article in, 256-7, 267
Columbus, Christopher, proposed

memorial to, 88-9
Coma Hill, Cat Island, B.W.I.,

119, 126, 138, 139
Commonwealth, The, Franciscan

article in, 14
Comper, Ninian, 226
Conception Island, B.W.L, 88, 146
Corrigan, Michael, Archbishop of

New York, 88
Cram, Ralph Adams, 52
Crossing Rocks, B.W.L, 133
Crowsnest Pass, B.C., Canada, 59
Cue, Australia, 70, 71, 72, 73-4, 75
Cuthbert, Brother, 32, 34, 35

Darville, Felix, 148, 149

Davidson, Bill, 256, 257, 267

Davison, Raffles, 217

Day Dawn, Australia, 70, 71, 75

Deadman s Cay, Long Island,
B.W.I., 41, 42, 44, 120, 129, 139,
147; restoration of Anglican
church at, 219

Deutsch, Abbot Alcuin, O.S.B.,
195, 200, 206, 255

Devall, Canon, 191

Deveaux, Mrs. Augusta, 137, 138

Devil s Point, Cat Island, B.W.L,
248, 250, 251

Divine Compassion, Society of,
Anglican Franciscan commu
nity, 14, 25, 30

Dominie, Father Hawes fox ter
rier, 108 ff,, 122-3, 125, 167-8,
252-3

Index

281

Donahue, Bishop Stephen J. f 190,

200, 205

Dover, Bishop of, 7
Dunmore Town, Eleuthera,

B.W.I., 123, 124

Edah, Australia, 75

Edmerton and Gabriel, architec
tural firm of, 7

Ewart, Abbess Scholastica, 62

Eyre, Rev. Vincent, 21, 22, 23, 24,
67

Family that Overtook Christ,

The, by Father M. Raymond,

O.C.S.O., 174
Farley, John Cardinal, Archbishop

of New York, 51, 64
Feigusson, Paschal, son of Victor

Fergusson, 173
Fergusson, Victor, 131-7, 146-8,

154, 160, 164, 173
Foster, Christopher, 118
Foucauld, Charles de, influence of,

126, 128, 161, 163, 185
Francis of Assisi, SL, 58, 129, 270-

1; influence on John Hawes of,

14, 24, 122, 126, 184, 185, 238;

cited, 185-6, 214
Francis, Father, 51, 53
Francis, Rev. Paul James, 46, 50,

51, 52, 53
Freetown, Cat Island, 150, 152,

155, 158, 164, 189, 203, 205, 207,
210, 211

Frey, Father Frederic, O.S.B., 158,
196, 200, 206, 255; cited, 271-2

Frith, Rev. Herbert, 24

Fulham Palace, John Hawes or
dained Anglican clergyman in,
21

Futterer, Abbot Edmond, O.C.S.O.,
201

Fynes-Clinton, H. J., 6

Gateley, Rev. Percy, 67

George, Monsignor, rector of the
Beda College, 60, 64

Geraldton, Australia, 65, 99; di
ocese of, 68, 89; Mondgoor
Hawes leaves, 109

Geraldton Cup, Father Hawes
wins, 96

Gill, Eric, cited, 95

Goodhart-Rendel, H. S^ cited, 216

Gore, Dr., Bishop of Birmingham,
35

Graymoor, New York, 45, 46, 50,
54; first impressions of, 51; de
signs chapel for, 52

Great Fingall Dump, Day Dawn,
Australia, 71

Greenough, Australia, 101, 109,
124

Gummer, Dr., Bishop of Gerald-
ton, 170

Gunnerton, Northumberland, 11;
church designed by Hawes at,
11, 15-16, 17, 217

Gurdon, Dom Edmund, cited,
174, 185

Hagarty, Father Leonard, O.SJB.,
158, 269, 273; consecrated
bishop and appointed Vicar
Apostolic of the Bahamas, 259-
60
Harbour Island, Eleuthera, B.W.I.,

123

Havana, Cuba, 87
Hawes family, 3-4, 13, 54-5, 59, 67
Hayes, Patrick Cardinal, Arch
bishop of New York, 95
Hecker, Father Isaac, cited, 113
Herman, Father, Q.S.B., 250
Hermitage, the, Cat Island,
B.W.I., construction of, 139-45
"Hermitage," the, GeraMton, 101
Hispaniola, Brother Jerome s irst
vessel, 42, 43, 129

282

Index

Hog Island, B.W.I., 135

Holy Child Jesus, Anglican Sister
hood of the, 46

Holy Comforter, Anglican Sister
hood of, 24

Holy Cross Church, Morawa, Aus
tralia, 226

Holy Redeemer, church of, Qerk-
enwell, John Hawes becomes
curate at, 21 ff.

Holy Redeemer, church of, Free
town, Cat Island, B.W.I., 152,
156, 197, 200, 202, 207; construc
tion of, 150; description of, 230,
246; sacristy destroyed by fire,
208; services in, 157-8, 192, 203

Holy Rosary, church of the, Sut-
ton, Surrey, 220

Holy Savior, Companions of the,
36

Holy Trinity Church, Sloane
Street, London, 8

Hornley, Bishop Wilfrid, 15-17,
18, 20, 22, 24, 39, 40, 48, 49

H6tel de Inglaterra, Seville, 98

How to Build a Church, by Father
Benedict Williamson, 227, 237

Illtud, Brother. See Burstall,

Bryan

Imitation of Christ, The, 183
Ingram, Winnington, Bishop of

London, 21, 23
In the Steps of St. Francis, by

Ernest Raymond, 103, 104
Ireland, early Christian buildings

in, 99; tour of, 99
Isle of Man, as chaplain on, 33-5

Jerome, Brother, John C. Hawes
known on Caldey as, 27

Jerome, Fra, John C. Hawes
adopts name of, 136

Jerusalem, Monsignor Hawes
visits, 111

Jumiges, France, 10

Kelly, Alfred Joseph, Bishop of
Geraldton, Australia, 64, 65, 68,
86, 220; death of, 90

Kevenhoerster, Father Bernard,
O.S.B., 89, 113, 117, 118, 126,
129, 135, 149, 156, 189, 200, 203,
205, 206, 250; consecrated
bishop, 95; death of, 254

King, Dr., Bishop of Lincoln, 18

King s School, Canterbury, 1, 198

Knowles, Jonathan, 121

Kremer, Father Nicholas, O.S.B.,
168, 269

Lake Champlain, the, emigrant

ship, 55

Lake Monger, Australia, 82
Lamp, The, Graymoor publica
tion, 47
Lang, Cosmo Gordon, Bishop of

Stepney, 36

Langton-Jones, Commander; -159
Lansbury, George, 37
Lavanoux, Maurice, 267-8; cited,

213

Le Havre, France, 10
Le Puy, France, 10
Lethaby, William R., 7-8, 217
Lincoln Theological College, John

Hawes enters, 18, 20
Lisieux, France, pilgrimage to, 112
Little, Canon Knox, biography of

St. Francis of Assisi, 14
Little Flowers of St. Francis, 14
Littlehampton, Sussex, 4
Liturgical Arts, 213, 215, 230, 237,

258, 268
London County Council Arts and

Crafts School, 7, 8
London Polytechnic, 7
Long Island, B.W.I., 39, 43, 44,

45, 46, 117, 119, 120, 121, 146,

154

Index

283

Lorana, Mother, 46, 50, 51

McGarvey, Rev. William, 36
MacLeod, Canada, 56
McWeeney, William, Benedictine

oblate, 200
Malta, Eucharistk Congress at,

62 ff.

Marcion, Father, 191
Marsh Harbor, Abaco, B.W.I., 131
Martin, Rev. George, 37, 38
Mary Magdalene, St., church of,

Munster Square, London, 9, 24
Mary Magdalene, Sister. See

Rosina, Mother
Matanzas, Cuba, 88, 265
Mayaguana, Island of, 107
Mirror of Perfection, The, 14
Mondloch, Father Arnold, G.S.B.,

121, 122, 129, 153, 201
Montefiascone, Italy, 66
Montreal, Canada, 56, 264
Moorman, John R. H., 13
Morrisy, Paddy, 73-^i
Mortimer, Dr., 48, 49
Mount Magnet, Australia, 68, 69,

70, 75, 76, 78, 84
Mullewa, Australia, 90, 91, 101,

125, 223

Mumbinia, Australia, 75
Murphy, Sir Charles, Governor of

the Bahamas, 197, 205

Nassau, B.W.I., 40, 41, 44, 49, 88,
117, 123, 191, 195, 196, 198,
205, 219; Monsignor Hawes im
pressions of, 118; voyage from
Abaco to, 131-5; priest s retreat
at, 159; designs for cathedral at,
243-4

Nazareth House, Bluff Point, Aus
tralia, 101

Newman, John Henry Cardinal,
cited, 175

New Noraa, Australia* Benedic
tine monks of, 73, 109

New Providence Island, B.WX,
40; leper colony on, 127

O Brien, PfayUib, 85

(^Collins, James Patrick, Bishop
of Geraldton, 95, 96, 97, 105,
107,109,110,112,127,211,221,
236; friendship between Father
Hawes and, 100, 102, 103-4;
gives permission to Father
Hawes to retire to Bahamas,
113 ff.; cited, 114-15, 211

Q Connell, William Cardinal, 198

Olga, the. See Roma.

Orvieto, Italy, 66

Osendorf, Father Cornelius,
Q.S.B., 154, 195, 200, 244

Our Lady of the Valley Monas
tery, Valley Falls, RX, 201, 206,
228,252

Pacelli, Eugenio Cardinal, 102

Painsthorpe Abbey, Anglican Ben
edictine community of, 19-20;
chapel designed for, 218

Paris, France, 10, 112

Pater, Walter, cited, 22

Pax, Prinknash Abbey publica
tion, 174, 175, 257

Payne s Field, Australia, 82, 85

PeekskOl, New York, 50, 89, 117

Peter, Brother, 115

Pincher s Creek, Canada, con
struction camp near, 56

Pius X, St. and Pope, 60; prayer
to St. Joseph of, 92

Pius XI, Pope, 103, 129; names
Father Hawes as a dosaestk
prelate, 102; audience with, 111;
cited, 235

Port Howe, Cat Island, B.WX,
136, 137, 139, 141, 148, 149, 211,
248, 249

284

Index

Port Limon, Costa Rica, 87
Poverty, by P. Regamey, 258
Prendergast, Father James, 101
Presentation of the B.V.M., Sisters

of the, 68, 78
Prince of the Apostles, The, by

Revs. Paul James Francis and

Spencer Jones, 46
Prinknash Abbey, 47, 115, 173,

241, 242, 243
Prior, E. S., 8, 217
Pugin, A. W., 243

Quebec, Canada, 56

Quest of Solitude, The, 177

Regina (Saskatchewan) , Bishop
of, 64

Rhodes-Bristow, Canon, 12

Roberts, Mrs., 168

Robinson, O.F.M., Archbishop
Paschal, 14

Rocbird, the, Fra Jerome s dinghy,
190, 194, 197, 203, 207

Rocky Mountains, 57, 58

Roerig, Father Leander, 123-4

Rolle, Charles, 190

Rolle, Richard, 185, 261; cited,
176

Roma, the, Fra Jerome s sailing
boat, 133, 135, 136, 139, 146,
147, 148, 154, 160, 163, 164,
190

Rome, Italy, 60, 62, 65, 66, 67, 111,
112

Rope, Rev. Henry E. G., 60, 193;
cited, 60, 112; Father Hawes
visits, 90, 112

Rosina, Mother, 24, 50; estab
lishes Anglican Franciscan com
munity at Hull, 24-5, 32, 35;
founds house in Dalston, 35-6;
reconciled to Roman Catholic
Church, 46-7; joins Franciscan

Missionary Sisters, 52, 89, 95,
106

Rouen, France, 10

Royal Academy Exhibition, 11,
15

Royal Institute of British Archi
tects, 7

Ryan, Dr., Bishop of Geraldton
92, 93, 95, 97, 221

Sacred Heart, Franciscan Mission
ary Sisters of, 52, 117, 193

St. Anne de Beaupre*, shrine of, 56

St. Anselm s Monastery, New
York, N.Y., 89, 117

St. Augustine s Monastery and
College, Nassau, B.W.I., 195-6,
198, 199-200, 202, 207, 227, 271;
description and construction of,
238-42, 244-6, 253, 254-5

St. Damian, Anglican convent of,
24, 32

St. Ethelburga, church of, 8

St. Francis chapel, Graymoor, 52,
219

St. Francis, church of, Old Bight,
Cat Island, 195, 203, 207, 211,
248; description of, 230-2

St. Francis Hospital, Miami
Beach, Fla., 271

St. Francis, Third Order of, John
Hawes becomes member of,
61-2; obtains permission to es
tablish congregation of, 67;
ideas for transformation of,
167 ff.; adherence to Rule of,
184 ff.; loose connection with,
184

St. Francis Xavier Cathedral,
Geraldton, Australia, 65, 92-4,
220; Father Hawes honored for
design of, 102; description of,
221-2

St. George s Proprietary Chapel,
Brighton, 5

Index

285

St. John s Abbey, Collegeville,

Minn., 64, 88, 250
St. John the Baptist, church of,

Baintown, Cat Island, 163
St. John the Evangelist, Society of,

Oxford, 32
St. John of God, hospital of, Ger-

aldton, 100, 101, 226
St. John Lateran, basilica of, John

Hawes ordained in, 66
St. Joseph, church of, Perenjon,

Australia, 227
St. Hugh s Charterhouse, Crawley,

31
St. Laurence the Martyr, church

of, Bluff Point, Geraldton, Aus
tralia, 226
St, Mary, church of, Holy Soul s

Chapel in, 219

St. Mary in Ara Coeli, North
ampton, 227

St Mary, church of, Mullewa, Aus
tralia, 90 ff., 92, 94, 223-6
St. Mary the Virgin, church of,

New York, 49
St. Matthew, church of, Nassau,

B.W.I., 219
St. Patrick s Cathedral, New York,

49, 95
St. Paul, church of, Clarence

Town, 45-6, 153, 219; service

held in, after restoration, 48;

called "Pearl of the Bahamas,"

120, 195
St. Paul the Apostle, church of,

49
St. Peter, church of, Greenough,

Australia, 101
Sts. Peter and Paul, church of,

Clarence Town, Long Island,

191, 195, 201, 205, 244
St. Philip, church of, Dalston, 30,

32

St. Thomas, church of, 11
St. Vincent de Paul, Sisters of

Charity of, Fra Jerome gma re
treat to, 189-90

Saltiey, Birmingham, Father
Hawes becomes curate at, 35, 37

San Salvador, B.WJU 88, 120, 143;
hurricane strikes, 156

Santo Spirito, church ot Gerald-
ton, 100, 101

Schreiner, Rev. Chrysostom,
CXSJB., 88

Scott, Gilbert, 242

Sedding, John D., 8, 22, 243

Selby-Hall, Charles, 19, 55, 60,
131; letters from John Hawes
to, 62, 63, 66, 69, 92, 102, 189,
208

Selby-Hall, Mrs. Charles, 55, 60

Seven Storey Mountain, The, by
Thomas Merton, 262

Seville, Spain, 98, 99

Simms, Bahamian Anglican mis
sion station, 43, 44

Sirr, Rev. William, superior of
Society of the Divine Compas
sion, 30

Snowden, Philip, 37

Soliloquies of a Solitary, 175-7,
181, 183-6, 256, 257

Sang of Bernadette, The, by Franz
Werfel, 174

Spain, tour of, 98-9; influence of
architecture of, 99

Springs of Romance in the Litera
ture of Europe, The, by George
Wyndham, 226

Stephen Remarx, fictional popu
larization of Christian Social
ism, 14

Story of Assisi, The, by Una Duff
Gordon, 14

Strong, Carlton, 52

Studio, The, publication, 21$

Sutton, Surrey, 59, 89

Swinburn Castle, Northumber
land, 16

286

Index

Taubman, GoMie, 33-5
Temple, Frederick, Archbishop of

Canterbury, 19
Teresa of Avila, St., 154, 263
Three Rivers, Canada, 59
Tintagel, Cornwall, Monsignor

Hawes visits, 115
Toronto, Canada, 56

Universe, The, 124

Vie de Francois d Assise, by

Paul Sabatier, 13, 14
Voysey, Charles, 216

Walking tours, in France, 10; in
England, 30-2, 36-7; in Italy,
66

Waters of Siloe, The, by Thomas
Merton, 262

Wattson, Rev. Lewis T. See Fran
cis, Rev. Paul James

Webb, Philip, 216

Wells, Commissioner, 138, 164,
166, 190

Western Mail, The, Australian
publication, 123

"White Tower," 11, 217

Wickham, Dean, 18

Williamson, Father Benedict, 111
ff., 128, 227, 237, 255-6

Windsor, Duke of, Governor of
the Bahamas, 153-4

Winnipeg, Canada, 58

World War I, 65

World War II, 116, 160-1, 167

Yalgoo, Australia, 75, 78, 80, 87,
96; gold fields at, 68; descrip
tion of, 69; church at, 93

Yowergalbie, Australia, 75

1
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